TL,DR - too long, didn’t read? Listen on YouTube instead!

Let’s set the stage -

Based on ChatGPT summaries of CB Insights/US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 35-45% of startups fail in the idea/MVP stage (pre-product-market fit) and an additional 25-35% fail in early traction/seed stage.

60 to 80% in total, and only counting the startups that even list anything publicly. So the 80% number is both likely more accurate, and also on the low end.

There are a thousand reasons why, but it’s easier to look at what a startup needs to make it past these stages (roughly in order):

There are some amazing business and product ideas out there that never get past the concept stage. Some ideas aren’t real problems, some aren’t real solutions. Some are just poorly conceived.

An MVP is easier than ever to make. Regardless of what you think of AI or vibe-coding, making a semi-functioning proof-of-concept is something more people than ever can do.

…but it’s still not something anyone can do. Design, testing, troubleshooting, making something functional enough to work, without getting lost in the ambition of what you hope it will become. Those are still a series of specialized skill sets. As easy as it is to make an MVP, it’s still a gate.

Runway is an easy one to gloss over.

It’s not the $500k pre-seed round that holds most founders back. It’s much more basic than that. It’s the time, freedom, and a minimum level of resources to fund development.

Even an MVP takes some kind of web hosting. Some level of database. Some kind of app store listing. Website. Custom email domain. Vibe-coding tools, if you’re using them. Ideally enough funds to feed at least one founder during the building stages. Travel funds to meet investors, or commute to accelerator programs.

Worse still, basically every startup support option out there requires that founders have gotten past this step on their own.

I talk to founders every single day who aren’t going to make it past MVP, because they can’t fully build one. Whether that’s not understanding how a database works (which is no joke), not being able to make a downloadable/shareable app, or glacial customer growth.

That’s an awfully long walk.

You can drive around, of course. If you have a car. And fuel. And assuming the roads are open.

That’s the cliffhanger I want to end on for now - the gap. Where support is lacking the most. We’re talking about a massive field of brilliant products and founders, who need the lightest possible nudge to take off.

And I mean, take off. These aren’t small ideas or incapable founders. In many cases, they’re the best of the field, with brilliant and highly profitable ideas.

They just need a tank of gas to get there.

Luca’s ShortPen is a link shortener. What it does turn this:

“https://www.linkedin.com/posts/casamassimaluca_your-free-plan-is-too-generous-cool-take-share-7457441286875353088-GP1N/?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAAOjeYIBTzUOFAN52xKmsAIF5tcWgjqnLkQ“

Into this:

“https://shr.pn/shipped“

…why?

Obviously that’s handy for anything with a character limit where you want to share a link, and it just looks WAY better. Also in addition to the short link, you can create QR codes, which open up entire new avenues to get the link to audiences without them having to click on anything.

The real magic though is in the data.

In that first link, see everything after the “?” in the middle? “utm_source” and all the rest of that mess?

That’s data. Attribution, traffic, sources and destinations. Short links give you direct access to who is viewing your site, when, where, how often, on what device - etc. A huge, huge treasure trove of usable data for marketing campaigns, social media creators, ecommerce sites, you name it.

It’s a proven model, too. The company bit.ly popularized the technology, and is now a $100M ARR company, with a low overhead and small team supported by it.

Again, it’s technically simple, but you can also include premium features like custom domains (say, /MarketingCampaign or /CompanyName, without even the shr . pn in the link), a higher number of QR codes, branded QR codes, white-glove service. There’s a lot to sell to the highest-end customers, it’s a really marketable tool.

How does Luca’s ShortPen beat bit.ly, though?

First - he doesn’t really have to. There’s enough room in the market for both, and if his tool works as well as theirs, the two are cross-promoting each other just by talking about the power of link shorteners in general.

Second - bit.ly is venture/investment backed. Pressed, hard, to generate as much revenue as possible, as quickly as possible.

That brings us to our next section. Bit.ly being venture-backed isn’t by itself a bad thing. That means they have deeper pockets, and a healthy runway, on top of an established brand and user base.

What makes it a liability is that pressure to maximize profits and minimize costs. To leave no stone “under-monetized.”

What’s the worst thing a marketing/advertising tool can do to their customers?

Advertise their competitors first. Right there in the marketing campaign.

See, bit.ly recently made a change to their Free/Trial plan. The advantage of direct, short, branded links - pretty much the whole thing that makes them valuable - is removing that friction. Taking potential customers or viewers straight to your content, as quickly and conveniently as possible.

bit.ly added ad breaks.

So there’s a hard stop between your customers and where you want them to get, which is bad in terms of what the product is supposed to do at all.

And there’s nothing stopping those ad breaks, being targeted ads, from showing your competitor’s ads before your product page.

That is super duper valuable ad space for your competitors. To reach motivated customers immediately before they see your stuff, in a flow where they could potentially not even realize it was an ad? Ouch.

Now, this only affects users on the free plan. You can pay bit.ly’s premium plan fee to bypass that.

At a cost that’s going to go up every year.

And might have ads added later, because they did it once, and it made a lot of money!

Luca is a standout founder, and has built something great.

It’s functional, it meets a need, it’s working, and it’s LIVE.

He has paying customers, and a healthy base of freemium users.

And, he’s taking a proven business model, with a technical background and co-founding team behind it, to bring back an earlier vision of what bit.ly was when it was customer-focused.

Next comes the elbow grease - getting loud, running the sales, staying the course, and building the thing he’s wanted to build from the start!

It’s all about clearly articulating the value proposition, getting in front of the people it matters the most to. Bringing in more and bigger paying customers.

Bringing it back to the opening, I want to shout-out Luca and ShortPen by name. There’s a lot to celebrate, and it’s a very cool example of an ambitious technical founder, and an early growth stage, who has a clear path to success based on what he’s already accomplished, and what he has in-hand.

And he might fail.

To founders - as Captain Picard once said, “It’s possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness; that is life.” This is the path you’re setting out on. One of the most vital things a founder can do is take that quote, all of it, to heart. Embrace the challenge, thrive in the growth, know that failure is possible, and that failing isn’t the end.

To investors, accelerators, and governments - call this a small reminder to take a closer look at the models. Who, and what, projects are out there now. Where they are, how they can succeed. Take a minute to consider your investing model not just as a vehicle to poke holes in ideas and see where they’ll sink. But to see just how far they can go with a new sail.

If one of the founders of Google was in your office, in the early days. Would your model have allowed them to become what they are now?

Would you have invested in them at all?

Throxy’s Arnau Ayerbe, on team offsites being a launch point for the next big wins, rather than a victory lap on the last ones.

That’s a great note, because that glow, the emotional peak of an offsite, is an amazing point to run on. I personally have always felt more energized and ready to get back in the mix after them!

Come find me on LinkedIn

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