Despite the Internet Bubble, many start-up businesses failed, and continue to do so. Do they lack the vision? There are many factors that often work against the start-up businesses. Let us explore some of them. Most start-up businesses (I mean successful businesses) were founded by two or more entrepreneurs. It does not come as a surprise that most businesses founded single handedly bust sooner or later. This is because brainstorming is needed for running a business smoothly. When two or more people are involved in a business, wrong decisions are seldom taken. Location is an important factor too. Studies show that start-up businesses prosper in some particular areas. Take, for example, the Silicon Valley. Over 80% of the start-ups there succeed. Is that sheer coincidence? Observe carefully that Paris is the Mecca of fashion. Why most designers from Paris become highly successful? The third factor to be discussed here is innovation. If you are doing something that millions of others are doing, too, you might become successful, but the extent of success will be limited. On the other hand, if you work on an idea that is unique, and you believe that you can create a demand for it, the venture would surely be successful. Remember, there is no substitute for innovation in business. Choosing legacy technology can also cost you your success. Obsolete systems incorporating technology used in the horse-and-buggy days would never let you succeed in the competitive marketplace. To give an example, if you use manual dialers in your call center, you would never be able to process millions of calls at a given point of time. However, a predictive dialer (automated) can improve agent productivity, and thus maximize profits. Hiring incompetent workers can also be detrimental to a start-up. Data-management is also important. A hosting service like exchange hosting can be beneficial to a start-up business too.