Research Methods

Research for this project involved online data collection from CB Insights, Crunchbase, Owler, Autopsy.io, web searches, journal articles, founder's stories, and stories others wrote about company failures. A sample size of twenty-eight failed startups were chosen with the condition that the startup has the following information: company description, industry, reasons for failure, beginning year, close year, founder(s), funding, and geographic location. This information is then combined to make a page for each company. Information regarding beginning year, close year, founder(s), funding and geographic location are objective facts. Though the information from blogs and articles are subjective, they are analyzed with the goal of helping entrepreneurs avoid the same mistakes, highlighting factors that led to closure. It is difficult to objectively state a reason for failure; there are many factors that go into a company's downfall.