The start-up game is a notoriously treacherous and risky business and although failure rates are particularly hard to pin down for web ventures, depending on who you speak to, it’s commonly accepted that as many as 50-65% of online start-ups fail to meet financial expectations (although I suspect this is much higher), and around two thirds of venture-capital funded start-ups fail to make a return for their investors.

However you choose to define failure, and conversely how you define success is up to you, but you can’t deny that there are many pitfalls that can be instrumental in the failure of a start-up, but how can you avoid them?

Here are 5 danger signs to look out for in your start-up, and why they’re such a threat. What you do about them is up to you. Don’t have nightmares…

1. A “Me too” approach - If you’re simply copying the ideas of others because you want a piece of the pie, or because you think that somehow it’s less risky to emulate a proven success, it’s worth remembering that the original idea didn’t come about this way, and instead was created to solve a problem. If you’re not solving a problem in a new way, you’ll always be playing catch-up with more established competitors, which makes your start-up unattractive to both the end-user and any potential investors you were hoping for.

2. Launching too early - The urge to get something out there is pretty hard to resist, especially after spending your time convincing others what a ground-breaking product you have, but you only get one chance to make an impression, and if your service is broken, unfinished or has a sloppy design, you could spend the entire first year wondering what went wrong, and while it’s important to get the core functionality out there quickly and rely on scalability to improve over time, a bad start-up cannot be unlaunched. It’s better to spend an extra 2-3 months on the fundamentals than a whole year pulling your hair out and fighting off bad reviews.

3. Trying to do everything yourself - Co-founders not only share the risk, the workload, and the ups & downs of a start-up, they’re also a vote of confidence for your idea. Anyone looking in from the outside will see a start-up idea powerful enough to make more than one person quit their job and risk everything to make it happen. Not only that, but working with others on a shared goal is extremely motivating. Don’t try to do it alone.

4. Not getting feedback - There’s really no excuse for skipping the feedback process, or worse still, getting feedback and choosing to ignore it. Some people don’t take criticism well, and if you’re one of them, brace yourself.. you can either listen to your users, or listen to your ex-users. An empty site is a lot more demoralizing than a negative comment.

5. Starting something you’re not passionate about - If you’re just in it for the money, and hope that you’ll eventually develop a passion for the industry, you’ll get neither. Always assume that your competitors are absolutely drop-dead passionate, and would cut their right-arm off to do what they do. Similar to the “me too” approach in point 1, can you really expect to compete with people who care more than you do? Choose something that’s a joy to do, and success will be a natural consequence.