Why startups fail: what the data and the big collapses tell us

On 22 October 2020, the founders of Quibi published an open letter announcing that their short-form streaming service would close. It had launched just six months earlier with $1.75bn from backers including Disney, NBCUniversal and Viacom, PBS NewsHour reported. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman offered two possible explanations: the idea was not strong enough to stand on its own, or the timing was wrong. They admitted they would never know…