Why start ups are unable to grow

I notice a lot of start ups desperately looking to establishing themselves and make a mark for themselves. The entrepreneurs invest a lot of their time, treasure and energy into making their companies successful.

Finance seems to the most common perceived challenge to start up growth. They look to Angel investors, friends, relatives to support them in their formative stages. While the need for money cannot be wished away, I believe that there are other more important contributory factors. Let me list a few of them:

1. Inability to keep cost under control
2. Absence of long term vision, strategy and plan
3. Focus on immediate revenue gain
4. Unwillingness to invest time and energy on building the brand name of the company
5. Resorting to short cuts, using brokers to win jobs etc

A start up who takes care of not committing the above mistakes repetitively has a greater likelihood to grow and mature into a full fledged sustainable business.