Here's The Reason Why Startups Crash And Burn, According To Silicon Valley Investor Paul Graham

Prolific investor Paul Graham recently shed some light on that in The Information, Jessica Lessin's new tech news site.

His theory? People spend too much time making products they don't want.

Here's the full quote:

Probably the biggest cause of failure is not making something people want. The biggest reason people do that is that they don't pay enough attention to users. For example, they have some theory in their heads about what they need to build. They don't go out there and talk to users and say "What do you want?" They just build this thing and then it turns out users don't want it. It happens time and time again.

Another reason might be that they're just not energetic enough. Part of what you have to be energetic enough about is going out and making users real, real happy. They just do a half ass job of it. Maybe they're pointing along the right vector but they only go half as far as they need to. Users look at it and they say, "Ah, it's pretty good." A million pretty goods, and you're dead.

You should definitely check out the rest of the interview over on her blog here >>