Is your startup a zombie? These metrics and behaviors will tell you

Edited excerpt from Zombie Startups by Danielle Morrill:

How do you know if your startup is a zombie? Here are some hints:

• You don’t want to get out of bed in the morning
• You don’t want to go out in public for fear you’ll have to explain what you do
• You haven’t hit 10% week-over-week growth on any meaningful metric (revenue, active users, etc) at some point like launch or some other PR event.
• You’re working on the same idea after 12+ months and still haven’t launched
• You’ve launched a consumer service and have less than 2% week-over-week growth in signups
• You’ve launched an enterprise service and have less than 2% week-over-week growth in revenue pipeline
• You are the CEO and hole yourself up in the offices so you don’t have to talk to employees
• You’ve hired consultants to figure out revenue, culture, or product in a company of less than 10 people

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, don’t panic – you can fix this. Acknowledge the reality of your situation. Then figure out what to do next because you don’t want to waste a single moment of your life in denial, in deadlock, in zombie mode waiting for something you can’t control to change or expecting magic to happen.