Knowingly dead-end startups

Anyone who has decided to start his own business decides for himself the main question. What exactly to do? What business activities should I choose? What should be invested in cash, if any, and what is the prospect of attracting investors if they do not exist? More recently, some types of economic activity have promised prospects for high incomes, and this factor often affects the plans of those who want to take an example from someone and also succeed.

However, we should not forget about the wonderful Russian folk tale of "tops and roots", it has not lost its meaning and remains relevant. Classes that were recently very profitable, today can become unprofitable. As they say in Odessa, "what happened yesterday was Hochma, today it's completely different."

Not only that, in its essence, any startup is of a venture nature (that is, it has a certain riskiness). There are types of activities that have become so futile in recent years that any possible investor will simply laugh at the businessman who turned to him with such an offer. And this is at best. It will be much worse if the money for development is given, and they "fly out into the pipe," and it turns out that the case was obviously a failure. To avoid such sad situations, it is worth reading the list below. These are not venture projects. These are guaranteed failures.

Social networks

The case when "who first got up ...". There is already VKontakte, Facebook, "Classmates" and Twitter. Moreover, there was a case when a ready-made social network, successfully working, managed to "kill" to death, that is, without hope for a revival, and this was done not by some newcomer, but by Murdoch himself, of course, of course. All attempts to entice subscribers to themselves are doomed to failure in advance, even if the whole state apparatus is started up, as, for example, in Ukraine, where the blocking of Russian services is introduced. The "patriotic" site was signed by a ridiculous number of citizens, and the rest chose to bypass official prohibitions. A novice entrepreneur does not have such resources. Shares of the Chinese social network Renren, quoted in 2011 for 14 dollars, very quickly, for a couple of years, fell to three. The deadlock nature of the direction is due not only to the habit, but also to the systemic contradiction inherent in it: websites exist at the expense of advertising, and when there are too many, the visitors are very unhappy.

Dating websites

Ungrateful business. First, there are too many such electronic resources. Secondly, even the most successful of them provide a very small percentage of successful contacts, and they immediately after receiving the result in the form of a chosen (elected) are, of course, removed, that is, they retire. All the rest do not last more than a month. So says the statistics, and in general, it fits perfectly into the banal logic. Who wants to "hang" on the dating site for years? Already the very fact of this speaks about the almost complete lack of chances to find the "second half". Out of a million subscribers (if this result is still achievable), there will not be more than 80,000 per year. Every year, four hundred electronic services of this profile "evaporate without a dry residue" on the Internet. To start a similar business, you should be very brave or actually have some great idea that can allocate a resource from a general dull background. The main thing is not to overestimate its freshness.

Music

To convince, persuade or force users to pay for downloaded music, as practice shows, is almost impossible. Yes, in this direction much is being done, including in Russia, "mirrors" and all that stuff are closed. It's harder to download for free, but even the most convinced supporters of the fight against piracy doubt that all loopholes can be blocked. The success stories of music startups can be counted on the fingers, and then, one should take into account the tremendous efforts of their organizers, billions of investments and gradually attained high attendance. But the losers in this case are much more.

alternative energy

It sounds beautiful, looks very promising and progressive, but in practice - full seams and solid losses. And information sites, and production does not pay off. Do not help free loans, subsidies and other measures of state support. The energy received by means of solar batteries, windmills and other "green" sources, to the great chagrin, is still too expensive, and relatively low prices for natural hydrocarbons in no way contribute to environmental progress. You can treat these phenomena in different ways, but with the facts, every businessman is simply obliged to be considered. Investments in the industry naturally decrease.

Unconventional transport

This concept is very wide and includes a variety of modes of movement, from dirigibles to horse traction. There was even a monorail project for an ecologically clean road, according to which, as it was seen in the dreams of its failed creators, every passenger himself would "pedal" on his relatively comfortable cart (or in such a small trailer). As for horses, this idea is by no means new and is only applicable in the application of riding children and adults in public parks, but the competition in this service is very high. In addition, you need serious knowledge, including in the field of veterinary medicine. And some stable. And you need to feed the horses with something. And you need to love them.

And mass passengers are conservative and prefer conventional modes of transport: airplanes, trains, cars, sometimes ships. They do not want to fly on airships.

Tourism

Who did not have time before 10-15-20 years to jump on the run in this rapidly rushing express, at least in the last car, there is nothing to catch there. It is already too late to start another trade of e-tickets, exciting tours, cruises, vouchers to holiday homes and sanatoriums, renting cars and similar products of the tourist profile, both electronically and physically. All places under the sun are occupied, it is impossible to compete with recognized authorities. If, however, someone decides to do this business, then he is waiting for a difficult, dramatic and tense, although short-lived struggle with a predictable outcome.

Electromobiles

Also very promising direction, which explains the interest in it, manifested by various serious people and structures. And do not even have to think about the domestic project "E-mobile". Actually, nothing happened to anyone who was engaged in the construction of electric vehicles and invested in them a colossal amount of money. Israeli company Better Place lost $ 550 million, trying to convince consumers that the network of charging stations is already built, and the price is good, and the environment, and that, and this. And they sold only 750 pieces of vehicles and went bankrupt. And Ilona Mask while basically talking. Both Fisker Automotive and Aptera are all the same.

The solution is simple: batteries do not last long, but cost so much that during this time gasoline will cost cheaper at times. Maybe when a technological breakthrough happens ... But then it will be too late.

T-shirts

Business seems to be a win-win, and every manufacturer considers himself an unsurpassed designer of drawings on T-Shirt. It seems nothing complicated: know yourself sell t-shirts and count money. That's the whole point. An activity that everyone can cope with attracts so many enthusiasts that they become very cramped. The fight goes for the right to the most miserable profitability, and sometimes dumping is used to destroy rivals. This situation is called the "hungry sea", that is, the environment where everyone is eaten, who are at least a little weaker.

Of course, not all currently unpromising lines of business are listed, there are many such. The task of the article was only to alert the overly optimistic start-ups.