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Tenacity with Sonia C.

Tenacity with Sonia C.

Why Most Startups Fail: The Founder Mistakes No One Warns You About

Mar 12, 2026 · 48m

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On this episode

About this episode

Most startups don’t fail because founders lack ambition. They fail because founders build in a vacuum, avoid the real problem, and keep operating at the wrong level for the stage of the company. In this episode of Tenacity with Sonia C, Sonia sits down with startup founder, investor, and author Andrew Ackerman, who has built multiple companies and invested in more than 70 early-stage startups. Andrew shares the patterns he sees repeatedly across founders, the mistakes that quietly kill startups, and the habits that separate companies that survive from those that disappear. One of the biggest misconceptions founders have is that building a startup is about big ideas and innovation. In…