Starting Pukena has since stretched my knowledge capacity. I have studied over 100 successful startups in Nigeria to find out what they are doing right.I noticed a trend, there seems to be a band of successful startups that keep coming up in the media, raising funds and hiring the best talents while others fizzle out with time. In 2018 alone I have counted 5 major startups that failed.I tried to find out what those that succeed are doing right and what the others that fail ain't.

I discovered the following mistakes amongs some failed startups..

1. Single Founder

Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person? Even companies you think of as having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to have more. It seems unlikely this is a coincidence.

What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best.

But even if the founder's friends were all wrong and the company is a good bet, he's still at a disadvantage. Starting a startup is too hard for one person. Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong.

The last one might be the most important. The low points in a startup are so low that few could bear them alone. When you have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in a way that seems to violate conservation laws. Each thinks "I can't let my friends down." This is one of the most powerful forces in human nature, and it's missing when there's just one founder.

2. Bad Location

Startups prosper in some places and not others. Lagos dominates, then Abuja, then Portharcourt, Calabar, Enugu, and Uyo. After that there's not much. Even in Abuja the number of startups per capita is probably a 20th of what it is in Lagos. In towns like Kano and Owerri and Aba it's too small to measure.

Why is the falloff so sharp? Probably for the same reason it is in other industries. What's the sixth largest fashion center in Nigeria? The sixth largest center for oil, or finance, or publishing? Whatever they are they're probably so far from the top that it would be misleading even to call them centers.

It's an interesting question why cities become startup hubs, but the reason startups prosper in them is probably the same as it is for any industry: that's where the experts are. Standards are higher; people are more sympathetic to what you're doing; the kind of people you want to hire want to live there; supporting industries are there; the people you run into in chance meetings are in the same business. Who knows exactly how these factors combine to boost startups in Lagos and squish them in Uyo, but it's clear they do from the number of startups per capita in each.

Read complete report here: http://pukena.ng/blog/18-mistakes-kill-startups