Startup Killer: Choosing the Wrong Co-founders

After advising hundreds of science and tech startups, I have seen this pattern over and over again. Most startups don't fail because of ideas. Rather, many of them fail because their co-founders and partners might make some decisions too early in the hiring process, or they might hire the wrong people for the wrong reason. So in this video, I'm going to break down how to choose co-founders and your business partners that are compatible for you. And this is not based on titles or fancy resumes, but rather what truly drives long-term success. So if you're building your company for the first time or transitioning out of academia, keep watching because in this video I'll walk you through 5 key common patterns I see over and over again when founders are choosing their co-founders and business partners throughout their journey. So let's get into it. Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, I'm Stacy Chin, a federal grants and contracting consultant who has helped to raise over $50 million of non-diluted funding for startups developing innovations in climate, biotech, and defense. Here's a hard truth about startups that most people don't want to talk about. According to Noam Weizerman from Harvard Business School, drawing research supported by the Kauffman Foundation, 65% of high-potential startups fail because of co-founder conflicts or people problems. It's not the science, it's not the technology or the market. And this pattern shows up over and over again. In another independent analysis by CB Insights, they reported that 23% of failed startups cite not having the right team as a primary reason for their shutdown. So When founders ask me what are some common ways that startups fail, the answer is rarely what they expect. Most startups don't die because of a good idea. They die because sometimes the founding team was misaligned, incomplete, or fundamentally broken. But at the end of the day, your team actually is the foundational engine to drive your startup forward. And if that foundation cracked, then nothing on top of that will hold true.