The one factor of success you must consider when starting a business.

The #1 factor that influences success or failure of a startup was identified in research conducted by Bill Gross, the founder of IdeaLab and presented in a 2015 TED Talk.

IdeaLab is a business incubator in California started by Bill in 1995. Since then, IdeaLab has incubated over 150 companies. From those experiences, Bill wanted to determine what had the most influence on the success or failure of a new business.

He looked at 5 different factors that he felt had the biggest effect on success or failure. Those factors were:

Business Concept/Idea

Business Operational Model

Level of Funding

Management Team

Timing to market

Bill’s research included all of the IdealLab companies plus an additional 100 startups that were not associated with IdeaLab.

In the end, his research concluded that ‘Timing to market’ was the most influential factor in determining the success or failure of a new business.

Timing to market...had more impact on the success or failure of a start-up than the concept, or the management team, or the amount of funding and even above execution.

Being successful based on ‘Timing to market’ means that when the start-up launched, there was an accessible market made up of customers that had a need for that product or service and were willing to pay for it.