Change is constant—especially in the fast-paced world of startups.
In this episode, Franziska breaks down some of the biggest startup and marketing trends and shares a simple 3-step model to help you navigate change and the ever-evolving landscape.

Here’s a sneak peek:

  • Startup Trends: Why 50% of startups fail, funding dynamics, and the rise of female-led businesses.
  • Marketing Shifts: From storytelling over traditional ads to the explosion of short-form video and data-driven personalisation.
  • Adapting to Change: Learn how to acknowledge, accept, and adapt when change feels overwhelming.

Whether you’re leading a startup, growing your business, or just want to stay in the know, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

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Franziska: Hi and welcome back. I just finished a keynote for Founder Institute and I shared with them some really interesting startup trends and also marketing trends and then a model to navigate change because change is our only constant change. It’s constantly happening and it’s accelerating too. So let me give you some trends first and then a um, model that you can use to navigate through the change that you may be facing in your business and ah, even in your personal life too.

So there’s one trend that is actually not even a trend because it has been happening for a long time and that is the failure rates of startups and the failure rates across the board in most countries, especially looking at UK, Australia, US has been around 50 ish, 45 to 50% in the first year of a startup.

We know this and that’s why we’re also here. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re doing marketing, you’re educating yourself on marketing. And mostly startups fail because their product market fit is not so good. So their product is not really good and they are trying to get to attract the wrong audiences.

So that’s the first one. Second one is funding Dynamics. Only about 1% of startups actually secure venture capital. However, there’s also a lot of angel investing that is happening that is not part of the 1%. So that’s the good news. Overall the startup exits have dipped over the last decade, but the exits in deep tech, especially in deep tech unicorns, has risen by over 500% in the last decade.

And then of course the female led startups are still smaller than the male led startups and that’s around 20, 22%. It has doubled though in the last decade, which is really good news when we look at marketing trends. Of course we have seen the raise of data driven personalization and that’s only getting better and better and better with now advanced analytics, AI, machine learning.

And then we’ve also seen the rise of influencer marketing. You may be using influencer marketing for your business right now. And it’s pretty interesting because some of these influencers out there bring in more business for companies than celebrities. So something to look at. Also we’ve shifted from traditional ads to more storytelling and content marketing.

I used to work 15, 16 years ago, uh, I used to work in advertising and we did a lot of ads, promotional ads for companies. Now that’s changed to a lot more storytelling ads. So a lot more great content, not just promotional ads. We’ve also seen an augmentation in an increase in Augmented reality, especially when it comes to shopping experiences.

Some, even some websites now you can buy sunglasses, you can try them on first and that’s only getting better and better and better. We’ve also seen an explosion of short form content, video content, long form content is still good too. However, we’ve seen with TikTok and also YouTube shorts and Instagram reels, all the short form content has exploded over the last decade.

And lastly, some companies are more, more and more companies are playing with blockchain and NFTs. And I remember Starbucks has a really cool loyalty program that is on the blockchain. Also Taco Bell, Nike, they all have launched their own NFTs. Some of them unsuccessfully, some of them more successfully.

Now, how do we navigate change? So we’re all faced with change in some industries more than others. So how do we navigate change that is coming faster and faster, especially also with AI. And there are so many opportunities with AI that I’ll get into another time. I’d love to give you a quick model.

So three steps that you can do when you’re faced with change. One is acknowledge that something is happening. So rather than I’m seeing a lot of businesses that are putting their head in the sand when there is change in their industry or in their business. And when they’re required to do something about it, they just put their head in the sand hoping that things will change again.

And um, that’s not a really good way to go about it. So instead, acknowledge, even if it feels uncomfortable, become aware. Secondly, we have to accept that this is happening. And again, there is, um, a psychological phenomenon that I’ve spoken with you about before. It’s called the illusion of control.

And what happens in that cognitive bias is that we believe that we have more ability to control the uncontrollable than we actually do. And so we need to be aware that we have this cognitive bias. And when we do have it, then we need to recognize it and go, okay, I got it.

I think I have no control over certain circumstances, but I can control how I react, how I act in the circumstance that I can’t control. And lastly, step three is adapt and act. So now take action in order to go and change something in your company. So acknowledge, accept and then adapt and act.

So I hope this is useful. I’ll be sharing more stuff with you also when it comes to AI and the disruption and how you can leverage that rather than being scared about it.