Articles

There can be million reasons why a startup project can fail, but only a handful why it can succeed. This reflects reality of things, since more than 70% of startups fail after a few years from launch. Success of an undertaking (or failure) is not just about the business concept as such, but more importantly about the people behind the business. The majority of people do not do enough. A lot of the startup projects fail because of lack of strategy and value proposition, but also lack of drive of the people behind them.

It is very common in the business world that the entrepreneur considers it essential to know their competition - product, price, scope, value proposition, etc. - to know how to "defend or attack", in short, how to position themselves in the market. And several scholars in the field believe that this understanding is essential for the success of the enterprise.

On a scale of one to ten, having a good business strategy rates about a fifteen!

The determination of a strategy is rooted in determining how a company stacks up against basic market forces, how it can defend itself against these forces and how it can influence these forces. Fortunately, Michael E. Porter in his article How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy defined these market forces for us. Known as Porter’s 5 forces they consist of: