Please, stop these 5 types of startup bullshit in 2025
Serously, I'm done with this stuff
1. Stop ‘revolutionising’ everything
My Twitter feed showed me this thing.
What is it? Well according to them, it’s a bike saddle. Not just any bike seat: it’s revolutionary. Really?
WeWork was said to revolutionise work culture, Elisabeth Holmes still thinks she can revolutionise healthcare. Revolutionist entrepreneurs are high on dopamine and evangelists for their ponzi scheme of raising funds.
The audacity to call co-working spaces a revolution? Che Guevara, Rosa Parks and Lenin turn in their graves. What if these historic figures could’ve achieved an actual true revolution?
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2. Stop claiming to change the world
Why do all startups make these claims to revolutionise everything and change the world? Most of the time, it’s always a much smaller problem than startups claim to solve.
An example: A medtech startup pitch opens with a problem slide: “Healthcare is getting increasingly expensive” with some neat OECD graph proving their point.
The audience gasps, me including, wondering: “Oh really, did you figure out a way to reduce the administrative workload from 40% to 10%? Or a way to tax the rich so we have more money?”
Onto the next slide
“I have an AI model that helps to diagnose a very specific disease about 5% more accurately than doctors”.
The audience oos.
I cringe.
First, these type of AI models don’t perform well on new patients beyond the original dataset. These startups are just data scientists who haven’t been able to test their model in the real world because doing that in healthcare is a lengthy process.
I don’t mind that all this gets attention, OnlyFans artists also get their views. Let them be slutty towards investors, I’m not a moral police.
However, not all problems can be fixed by startups. That’s okay, but let that sink in.
3. Stop defending this behaviour for ‘at least doing SOMETHING’.
“AT LEAST THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE DIRE STATE OF THE WORLD” - says the Boomer or progressive voter on LinkedIn.
Yes, sure, ‘doing something’ also includes painting a picture of your house while your house is on fire. I could’ve called 112 (European 911 equivalent).
Novelty is applauded to the extent that the innovations are not even inspected critically anymore. It’s novel and bold therefore it’s laudable. Well done.
4. Stop uncritically worshipping ‘entrepreneurial superstars’
So why are most people not calling bullshit? People are only able to call bullshit if they understand what they see.
However, novelty includes new things. And new things are things people don’t understand right away.
In this tweet below, Elon Musk reinvents the bus, you know, the public transport vehicle.
Bullshit innovation? Apparently, much harder to detect for the general public. Especially when it comes from a entrepreneurial superstar. Sam Altman’s gospel also has apostles.
5. Stop obsessing over unicorns
For every successful startup, there is a multifold that didn’t make it. However, for some people failure means not becoming a unicorn or not making a positive ROI for your VC.
The unicorn is a story for just a few entrepreneurs. It sets the wrong expectations. Many young entrepreneurs think this is the only route. They believe without VC, they can’t grow big.
Plenty of examples, from Mailchimp to GoPro to Shopify show us that you can get quite big without any investment. Bootstrapping is cool. 90% of founders should consider this.
I’m not saying an economy shouldn’t have its outliers; Europe has a worrying low amount of unicorns for it’s market economy to be taken seriously. That is a different story.
Conclusion: Exponential eye rolls
I’m just rolling my eyes more and more often. I can’t be the only one, am I? I really wish 2025 will bring less bullshit and more critical bullshit calling. Have a great 2025!
Can I get an AMEN!
Agreed. I do think you have to go in with the desire to revolutionize something. Realists would very quickly realize this is a losing game, while optimists have more runway just through their energy.