Why Most Startup Ideas Fail. Data from 100,000 Ideas
2,621 people recently used our Startup Idea Generator on our site.
People Validate Startup Ideas on our website, and move their ideas forward.
Each entrepreneur filled in four fields:
The industry they want to enter
Their personal resources or strengths
The problem they want to solve
Who they believe the customer is
This gave us the clearest look we’ve ever had into how new entrepreneurs think.
Let’s get into it.
1️⃣ The Founder Intention Index
Which industries founders WANT to enter
technology ██████████████████████████████████████████ 912
education ████████████ 257
healthcare ██████████ 236
retail ██████████ 226
consulting ██████████ 225
food ██████████ 218
finance ████████ 153
manufacturing ████████ 137
entertainment ████████ 135
real estate ███████ 122
What we see:
Technology dominates with 912 submissions (34.8% of all ideas)
Education & healthcare follow behind (around 10% each)
Real estate, manufacturing, and entertainment are surprisingly low
Insight for founders:
Most people are selecting their industry based on personal interest, not advantage.
This is the first place where ideas start to break.
2️⃣ Skill–Industry Fit
Do founders actually have the skills to compete in their chosen industry?
low_fit ██████████████████████████████████████████ 2183
medium_fit ███████ 236
high_fit █████ 202
Key Insight:
83% of founders choose industries where they have little to no advantage.
That’s like entering the Olympics because “it seems fun.”
Your odds of finding a great startup idea get dramatically better when you explore:
what you know
who you know
and what you’ve done
3️⃣ Customer Clarity Score
How founders are describing their ideal customer (are they being specific in their description?)
Vague ██████████████████████████████████████████ 1873
Clear ████████ 399
Semi-clear ████ 166
Everyone ██ 157
Big companies █ 26
Only 22% of founders describe a real, reachable customer.
If your target customer is “people,” “users,” “business owners,” “students,” or “everyone”…
It means you haven’t actually identified a customer yet.
Strong ideas start with specific people, not categories. Clearly determine who is having a problem. Start there.
4️⃣ Problem Heatmap
What founders WANT to solve
ai_automation ████████ 354
education_learning ██ 111
marketing_sales ██ 119
logistics_ops ██ 118
startup_tools_validation ██ 89
health_nutrition █ 55
mental_health_wellbeing █ 27
financial_literacy █ 8
housing_real_estate █ 2
What this means:
Founders dramatically overbuild tools for:
creators
founders
developers
But almost no one builds for:
seniors
parents
teachers
tradespeople
blue-collar workers
people with non-tech jobs
These are enormous, underserved markets.
It seems many of us are caught up in the AI wave and are wanting to build tools.
5️⃣ Hidden Advantages Report
The strengths founders actually have, but rarely use
The most common strengths mentioned:
Coding / AI / engineering
Marketing + brand skills
Real-world domain expertise
Existing networks
Capital
Operational experience
But most founders don’t choose ideas that leverage these strengths.
Examples pulled directly from the dataset:
“I’m a nurse. I want to build a marketplace for startups.”
“I’m a robotics engineer. I want to build a job board.”
“I’m a real estate agent. I want to build AI tools for creators.”
The best ideas build around your advantage.
The weakest ideas ignore them.
Make sure you’re using your greatest advantage (your own experience, network and insights) when pursuing a startup idea.
6️⃣ Industry Readiness Index
Which industries have the best alignment between skills, problems, and reachable customers?
Education 23.2 (highest)
Consulting 17.0
Finance 15.0
Retail 12.3
Food 11.5
Real estate 10.6
Healthcare 9.6
Manufacturing 8.2
Entertainment 7.5
Education scored highest.
Why?
Founders in this category tend to:
Understand their customers
Have domain experience
Describe specific problems
7️⃣ Blind Spot Analysis
The big misunderstandings new founders have
Blind Spot #1: Industry difficulty is ignored
People pick AI, marketplaces, or tools for creators despite having no background in these spaces.
Blind Spot #2: Customers described vaguely
If you can’t picture the customer, you can’t sell to them. Describe them in great detail, because you’ll be in close contact with them on a daily basis.
Blind Spot #3: Misapplied strengths
Engineers choose generic SaaS.
Nurses avoid healthcare.
Teachers avoid education.
Realtors avoid real estate.
Your best ideas are usually hiding in plain sight inside your own life.
What is everyone in your industry complaining about? What do they need?
Make sure you avoid these common mistakes, above.
People Validate Startup Ideas on our website, and move their ideas forward.
Each entrepreneur filled in four fields:
The industry they want to enter
Their personal resources or strengths
The problem they want to solve
Who they believe the customer is
This gave us the clearest look we’ve ever had into how new entrepreneurs think.
Let’s get into it.
1️⃣ The Founder Intention Index
Which industries founders WANT to enter
technology ██████████████████████████████████████████ 912
education ████████████ 257
healthcare ██████████ 236
retail ██████████ 226
consulting ██████████ 225
food ██████████ 218
finance ████████ 153
manufacturing ████████ 137
entertainment ████████ 135
real estate ███████ 122
What we see:
Technology dominates with 912 submissions (34.8% of all ideas)
Education & healthcare follow behind (around 10% each)
Real estate, manufacturing, and entertainment are surprisingly low
Insight for founders:
Most people are selecting their industry based on personal interest, not advantage.
This is the first place where ideas start to break.
2️⃣ Skill–Industry Fit
Do founders actually have the skills to compete in their chosen industry?
low_fit ██████████████████████████████████████████ 2183
medium_fit ███████ 236
high_fit █████ 202
Key Insight:
83% of founders choose industries where they have little to no advantage.
That’s like entering the Olympics because “it seems fun.”
Your odds of finding a great startup idea get dramatically better when you explore:
what you know
who you know
and what you’ve done
3️⃣ Customer Clarity Score
How founders are describing their ideal customer (are they being specific in their description?)
Vague ██████████████████████████████████████████ 1873
Clear ████████ 399
Semi-clear ████ 166
Everyone ██ 157
Big companies █ 26
Only 22% of founders describe a real, reachable customer.
If your target customer is “people,” “users,” “business owners,” “students,” or “everyone”…
It means you haven’t actually identified a customer yet.
Strong ideas start with specific people, not categories. Clearly determine who is having a problem. Start there.
4️⃣ Problem Heatmap
What founders WANT to solve
ai_automation ████████ 354
education_learning ██ 111
marketing_sales ██ 119
logistics_ops ██ 118
startup_tools_validation ██ 89
health_nutrition █ 55
mental_health_wellbeing █ 27
financial_literacy █ 8
housing_real_estate █ 2
What this means:
Founders dramatically overbuild tools for:
creators
founders
developers
But almost no one builds for:
seniors
parents
teachers
tradespeople
blue-collar workers
people with non-tech jobs
These are enormous, underserved markets.
It seems many of us are caught up in the AI wave and are wanting to build tools.
5️⃣ Hidden Advantages Report
The strengths founders actually have, but rarely use
The most common strengths mentioned:
Coding / AI / engineering
Marketing + brand skills
Real-world domain expertise
Existing networks
Capital
Operational experience
But most founders don’t choose ideas that leverage these strengths.
Examples pulled directly from the dataset:
“I’m a nurse. I want to build a marketplace for startups.”
“I’m a robotics engineer. I want to build a job board.”
“I’m a real estate agent. I want to build AI tools for creators.”
The best ideas build around your advantage.
The weakest ideas ignore them.
Make sure you’re using your greatest advantage (your own experience, network and insights) when pursuing a startup idea.
6️⃣ Industry Readiness Index
Which industries have the best alignment between skills, problems, and reachable customers?
Education 23.2 (highest)
Consulting 17.0
Finance 15.0
Retail 12.3
Food 11.5
Real estate 10.6
Healthcare 9.6
Manufacturing 8.2
Entertainment 7.5
Education scored highest.
Why?
Founders in this category tend to:
Understand their customers
Have domain experience
Describe specific problems
7️⃣ Blind Spot Analysis
The big misunderstandings new founders have
Blind Spot #1: Industry difficulty is ignored
People pick AI, marketplaces, or tools for creators despite having no background in these spaces.
Blind Spot #2: Customers described vaguely
If you can’t picture the customer, you can’t sell to them. Describe them in great detail, because you’ll be in close contact with them on a daily basis.
Blind Spot #3: Misapplied strengths
Engineers choose generic SaaS.
Nurses avoid healthcare.
Teachers avoid education.
Realtors avoid real estate.
Your best ideas are usually hiding in plain sight inside your own life.
What is everyone in your industry complaining about? What do they need?
Make sure you avoid these common mistakes, above.
