An anti-pattern is a commonly used process, structure, or pattern of action that, despite initially appearing to be an appropriate and effective response to a problem, has more bad consequences than good ones.
Simeon Simeonov first wrote an introduction to the value of startup anti-patterns back in 2013. To sum it up, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact set of reasons startups succeed, but experienced entrepreneurs and investors have a good sense of what drives startups’ failures.
Startup anti-patterns are all about that — patterns that increase the risks associated with startups (hey, it’s a risky business to begin with). Pursuing an anti-pattern doesn’t mean that your company will die tomorrow or in the next year, but each anti-pattern adds-up and could lead to clouding your focus and hampering your ability to execute.
Together with Itamar Novick from Recursive Ventures, Simeon Simeonov is bringing the Startup anti-pattern series to life. Stay tuned for more in this series as we work through each anti-pattern with tangible examples from our experiences as founders and investors in 100+ startups, and the experiences of guest founders from our portfolio.
Startup Anti-Patterns full list (work in progress…)
Studying repeatable patterns of startup failure (startup anti-patterns) is more useful than studying non-repeatable strategies for startup success.
Top Startup Anti-Patterns:
- Elephant hunting
- Ignorance
- Platform risk
- If you build it, they will come
- Analysis paralysis
- Arrogance
- Attribution risk
- Bad revenue
- Bleeding on the edge
- Boiling the ocean
- Bridge to nowhere
- Changing strategy instead of execution
- Chasing the competition
- Confirmation bias
- Confusing activity with results
- Consulting to product
- Death by pivot
- Deathmarch
- Delayed scaling
- Demand generation
- Design by committee
- Designing for investors
- Drag
- Escalation of commitment
- Escape to the familiar
- Escapism
- Featuritis
- Forward thinking
- Founderitis
- Groupthink
- Hail Mary
- Ivory tower
- Lack of focus
- Lagging indicators
- Learned helplessness
- Long feedback cycles
- Lying to investors
- Magic salesperson
- Mentor whiplash
- Missing your exit
- Myopic bootstrapping
- Next round only
- Not knowing your investors
- One-off customization
- Oooh, shiny!
- Overengineering
- Overselling
- Oversteering
- Platform trap
- Premature optimization
- Premature scaling
- Promiscuity
- Proof by anecdote
- Pushing a rope
- Raising too little
- Random founders
- Scapegoat
- Second class citizens
- Seed extensions
- Secrecy
- Silver bullet
- Spreadsheet Bingo
- Stovepipes
- The one idea entrepreneur
- Top-down planning
- Uber pivot
- Underqualifying
- Unicorn hunting
- Unrealistic expectations
- Warm bodies
- Weak board
- Yes man
- Zombie
- Outsourcing your architecture (via Alan Neveu)
Note: the list is not “drawn to scale.” Some anti-patterns occur more frequently than others and some are more likely to cause a startup to fail than others.