--- title: Why Tech Startups Are Doomed to Die | daily.dev description: Tech startups have a 90% failure rate primarily because they're founded by technical teams lacking commercial skills. The main causes of failure include... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-tech-startups-are-doomed-to-die-5uqct5x2t twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why Tech Startups Are Doomed to Die | daily.dev og:description: Tech startups have a 90% failure rate primarily because they're founded by technical teams lacking commercial skills. The main causes of failure include... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-tech-startups-are-doomed-to-die-5uqct5x2t og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/5Uqct5X2T.png og:image:alt: Why Tech Startups Are Doomed to Die og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why Tech Startups Are Doomed to Die **[Codemotion](https://daily.dev/sources/codemotion)** · 13 min read · 110 upvotes · 16 comments ## Summary Tech startups have a 90% failure rate primarily because they're founded by technical teams lacking commercial skills. The main causes of failure include building products without market validation, running out of funds due to poor business metrics understanding, inadequate marketing, and having homogeneous teams without sales expertise. Technical founders often focus on perfect code rather than customer needs, leading to brilliant but useless products. Success requires combining technical skills with commercial acumen, active customer validation, and diverse team composition including non-technical co-founders who can sell and understand market dynamics. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@kirby00** · 5 upvotes > And?.. This is obvious, duh. :) **@dimi3ryi** · 4 upvotes > First of all, this is obvious. > Second, not 90% of startups founded by technical teams, that's for sure. The percentage is much lower; most sources will say that 60% or so. And not all of them are "doomed to die" as this clickbait title said, and actually achieve success. > > General stats for you from different sources: > 1. Unicorns in Europe: > 54% of European unicorn founders since the start of 2023 have been technical founders, a shift that now makes them the majority in the region. > > 1.b. Failed Unicorns in Europe: > In Europe, 90% of the founders of failed unicorns (companies that did not... **@mongosaurusrex** · 4 upvotes > Thanks for sharing this post, really interesting read! > I’d also like to add from my own experience: I’ve seen startups fail when founders pursued very technical products without having the necessary tech background. This often led to: > - Pressure to deliver on unrealistic projects. > - High developer churn as people struggled to maintain messy codebases. > - A lack of willingness to listen to developers or take their reasoning seriously. **@retamayo816** · 3 upvotes > I myself had 0 of 3 successes in startup hell.. **@southvalley** · 1 upvotes > Thanks for sharing this. --- Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#business](https://daily.dev/tags/business), [#marketing](https://daily.dev/tags/marketing), [#product-management](https://daily.dev/tags/product-management), [#entrepreneurship](https://daily.dev/tags/entrepreneurship) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-tech-startups-are-doomed-to-die-5uqct5x2t) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why Tech Startups Are Doomed to Die","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-tech-startups-are-doomed-to-die-5uqct5x2t","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-tech-startups-are-doomed-to-die-5uqct5x2t"},"datePublished":"2025-08-26T11:54:19.966Z","dateModified":"2025-08-26T11:54:50.166Z","description":"Tech startups have a 90% failure rate primarily because they're founded by technical teams lacking commercial skills. The main causes of failure include...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/4b0c74147b56e0ee01f36cb722e17e00?_a=AQAEulh","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/4b0c74147b56e0ee01f36cb722e17e00?_a=AQAEulh","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Codemotion","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Codemotion","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/008c4c0fe1ba4cd3b6a6740d442d242b","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/codemotion"},"commentCount":16,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-tech-startups-are-doomed-to-die-5uqct5x2t","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":110},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":16}],"keywords":"startup,business,marketing,product-management,entrepreneurship","timeRequired":"PT13M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Codemotion","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/codemotion"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Why Tech Startups Are Doomed to Die"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-tech-startups-are-doomed-to-die-5uqct5x2t","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"And?.. This is obvious, duh. :)","datePublished":"2025-08-27T12:55:13.974Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/5Uqct5X2T#c-ZmvZHhAqO","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Kirby Rs","url":"https://daily.dev/kirby00","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocK_9ZQdWWZ3MqQCQ_YLvT57JlRw79BoXvuLD_mNz1OmEKg73HMl=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"First of all, this is obvious.\nSecond, not 90% of startups founded by technical teams, that’s for sure. The percentage is much lower; most sources will say that 60% or so. And not all of them are “doomed to die” as this clickbait title said, and actually achieve success.\nGeneral stats for you from different sources:\n\nUnicorns in Europe:\n54% of European unicorn founders since the start of 2023 have been technical founders, a shift that now makes them the majority in the region.\n\n1.b. Failed Unicorns in Europe:\nIn Europe, 90% of the founders of failed unicorns (companies that did not achieve unicorn status) had no technical expertise.\n\n\nU.S. Tech Giants:\n100% of the founders of the 20 most valuable tech companies in the U.S. by market capitalization are technical founders.\n\n\nIndian Unicorns:\nOver 67% of Indian unicorn startup founders have engineering backgrounds, though this figure is down from around 85% two years ago.","datePublished":"2025-09-03T20:55:06.550Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/5Uqct5X2T#c-3MwJJyCo8","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Dmitryi Feschenko","url":"https://daily.dev/dimi3ryi","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/AOh14Gg_EOsM8ktwtfeM62CjToFvO33Mn2rJJ02rTCbK=s100"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Thanks for sharing this post, really interesting read!\nI’d also like to add from my own experience: I’ve seen startups fail when founders pursued very technical products without having the necessary tech background. This often led to:\n\nPressure to deliver on unrealistic projects.\nHigh developer churn as people struggled to maintain messy codebases.\nA lack of willingness to listen to developers or take their reasoning seriously.","datePublished":"2025-09-11T07:01:50.729Z","dateModified":"2025-09-11T07:02:19.234Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/5Uqct5X2T#c-r2hH89DLj","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Mongo Saurus","url":"https://daily.dev/mongosaurusrex","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/11362929?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I myself had 0 of 3 successes in startup hell…","datePublished":"2025-10-09T08:46:36.819Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/5Uqct5X2T#c-gg1zV9C1d","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"retamayo","url":"https://daily.dev/retamayo816","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/v1682779773/avatars/avatar_gIsVCuq8TmilQhnFiChM7.jpg"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Thanks for sharing this.","datePublished":"2025-11-15T02:49:13.122Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/5Uqct5X2T#c-uoFYAGLDb","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"South Valley","url":"https://daily.dev/southvalley","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/93480907?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}]} ```