Some reasons start-ups fail

By Prophet Ernest OWUSU

Work, at its core, is meant to contribute to the growth and development of an organisation, a business and, ultimately, society. Labour certainly provides wages, and wages are a legitimate means of provision. However, the ultimate purpose of work goes far beyond monthly pay. When labour is reduced solely to wages, something essential is lost.

Without committed labour—labour driven by responsibility, vision and integrity—societies stagnate. Development slows. Institutions weaken. Unfortunately, this deeper understanding of work is missing in how many Ghanaians perceive and approach employment today. For many workers, money has become the sole motivation for work. The job itself, the mission of the organisation and the trust placed in the worker often mean very little. When money becomes the only driver, two dangerous outcomes frequently emerge: greed or indifference.

Workers either exploit the system for personal gain, or they become careless and disengaged, doing the bare minimum while drawing maximum benefit. Both attitudes are equally destructive—and for start-ups, often fatal.

A personal experience from the frontlines of entrepreneurship

My views on this issue are not theoretical. They are born out of disappointing, real-life experience. Over the years, I invested heavily in Ghana. At my peak, I owned thirteen pharmacy shops, two schools and a fish farm on four acres of land. These were not small ventures. In the pharmaceutical sector alone, I poured over US$300,000 into building a business with a long-term vision for growth and impact.

Central to that vision was people development.

One of my key directors was someone I picked up from ground zero. I personally sponsored his education, paid his fees and supported him through professional training to become a pharmacist. I believed in capacity building. I believed that when you invest in people, they would protect and grow what you have built together. I was wrong.

Instead of stewarding the business entrusted to him, this individual secretly began running his own pharmacy operation within my pharmacy business, without my knowledge. He sold his personal medicines through my shops while neglecting company stock. As a result, large quantities of medicines expired—representing massive financial loss.

This was not ignorance. It was not incompetence. It was deliberate exploitation driven by greed.

The cost of a broken work ethic

Unfortunately, this experience is not an isolated incident. Across many businesses, the same destructive patterns repeat themselves with alarming consistency. In many organisations:

• There is stealing, both overt and concealed.
• There is embezzlement, frequently justified under the guise of operational costs.
• There is internal fighting, driven by personal ambition rather than collective purpose.
• There is poor attitudes toward work, where diligence is seen as optional and responsibility as an inconvenience.
• There is a profound lack of accountability and, perhaps most damaging of all, there is zero emotional ownership of the enterprises entrusted to them.

Work without meaning produces exploitation

Scholars have long argued that when work is reduced solely to economic exchange, ethical responsibility diminishes. Max Weber, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, observed that societies thrive when work is viewed as a calling rather than merely a means of survival. Where this moral dimension is absent, work becomes transactional, and commitment evaporates once personal benefit is secured.

Similarly, Karl Marx warned that when workers become alienated from the product and purpose of their labour, they lose any sense of ownership or responsibility. Alienated labour, Marx argued, produces indifference, exploitation and, ultimately, organisational decay. This alienation is evident across many businesses—workers do not see the enterprise as something to protect, but as something to mine.

According to Drucker, employees must understand how their work contributes to the broader mission of the organisation; otherwise, discipline degenerates into mere compliance, and compliance eventually gives way to resistance or abuse.

In my experience, trust was consistently violated. Systems designed to empower workers were instead exploited. Autonomy was mistaken for weakness. Opportunity was interpreted as access for personal enrichment rather than collective growth.

Start-ups and the fragility of ethical failure

Start-ups are particularly vulnerable to poor work ethics. Unlike established corporations, start-ups depend heavily on relational capital—trust, loyalty and shared sacrifice. As organisational scholar Edgar Schein explains, culture is not written in policy manuals; it is expressed in daily behaviour.

When a culture of accountability is absent, even well-funded ventures collapse from within. Over time, the financial losses I sustained became unsustainable. One by one, I was forced to shut down operations.

Beyond the financial damage, the emotional toll was profound. Entrepreneurship requires resilience, but persistent betrayal erodes the will to continue. As economist Joseph Schumpeter noted, entrepreneurs are agents of innovation, but innovation cannot survive in environments hostile to ethical responsibility. When systems are repeatedly undermined from within, withdrawal becomes a rational response.

Reclaiming the moral meaning of work

The failure of these businesses is not merely a personal loss; it reflects a broader societal challenge. Work must be redefined not just as a source of income, but as a moral and social obligation. Adam Smith, often misunderstood as advocating pure self-interest, insisted in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that economic life collapses without virtue, restraint and regard for others.

Until workers understand that labour carries ethical weight—until work is seen as contribution rather than exploitation—start-ups will continue to fail, investors will retreat, and national development will remain elusive.

The cost of a broken work ethic is not only financial. It is institutional, cultural and generational.

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