Rita Janusauskaite: Startup Mistakes and the Future of E-Commerce

The first thing I would say about myself is that I am a family person. The next thing is that I love playing tennis. And the third thing would be that I currently hold the position of COO, Chief Operations Officer, at Kilo Health. It’s a broad and dynamic role, overseeing customer success, data team, and logistics to infrastructure, CRM teams, and the e-commerce product department.

While it’s certainly challenging, I’m enjoying every aspect of it. You’re always in a constant state of learning, which I deeply value. Besides, I’ve had the opportunity to observe various types of businesses and have drawn some conclusions about success, mistakes, and spotting emerging trends.

That’s what I want to share with you in this blog post. Let’s dive in!

One-time success doesn’t mean competence

What’s the rule for keeping a startup alive after one year? Is there a secret? I can’t answer these questions because there is no straightforward answer.

If there were a rule, more startups would succeed after their first year. The truth is, there isn’t one — each situation is unique. Those who succeed don’t mistake luck for skill and continually deepen their knowledge about what they do. 

It’s about character and determination and having a clear plan based on past results. This might be the only real key to success, but there’s definitely no one-size-fits-all model.

Instead of searching for successful recipes, let’s turn to the biggest mistakes, that some startups can avoid. For instance, arrogance — believing we know everything and are perfect — can be a major obstacle. You might also be confusing competence with success. Just because something worked once doesn’t mean you understand how every product, channel, or process works. 

When success happens repeatedly, and you can assess why and how it happened, that’s when you can truly say you understand it and can replicate it.

Lastly, don’t overlook the importance of financial literacy. If a leader or team doesn’t grasp their numbers, there’s a high risk the project will fail.

Practice makes it perfect

Navigating the startup environment involves frequent changes, occasional wins, and uncontrolled downturns. Truly neutral and stable businesses are rare — whether they are startups or established companies. The key difference lies in experience. 

Long-established businesses have developed risk management mechanisms over time, allowing them to better control and anticipate both gains and losses.

Startups, on the other hand, can only achieve stability by implementing these risk management mechanisms. However, this process is often costly and not commonly adopted in the early stages. Startups are typically focused on rapid growth, innovation, and market penetration, which often means taking risks and making quick decisions.

The ideal scenario is to have controlled downturns paired with significant wins. This balance is achieved through learning and experience. In the startup world, setbacks are inevitable, and it’s nearly impossible to manage everything perfectly and maintain constant stability.

Yet, with practice and perseverance, startups can improve and come closer to achieving this balance.

Startup growth stages and how leaders adapt

But before diving into hands-on experience, startups go through different stages, and leaders need to adapt as the company grows.

Each phase comes with its own set of challenges, from the early days of working with a small team to managing larger groups as the business expands. Here’s a look at the main stages and how leadership is key to keeping things on track:

Early Stage: Every successful startup eventually reaches a point where the founder and a few key people can’t support the business alone anymore. This is when the company starts to expand.

Family Stage: As the business grows, it enters a “family” phase. People work closely, know each other well, and push together toward a common goal. The success of the project is personal to everyone involved.

Scaling Up Stage: The most challenging phase begins when the team grows beyond the family structure. Close connections become harder to maintain, and the sense of shared success can weaken. At this stage, the future of the project depends on strong leadership. The team leaders’ ability to manage high-performance teams and maintain momentum becomes critical.

Trends and predictions in e-commerce

Now, on a more fun note, let’s wrap up this article with some trends and predictions I’m noticing in e-commerce.

For starters, global media giants like Google, Meta, and TikTok are setting new trends, especially in how they protect user data. For businesses, this means it’s getting harder to collect information about users, making it more expensive to reach customers. As a result, the commonly known idea that online shopping is always cheaper might not be true anymore.

With rising advertising costs, the profitability of online and traditional retail businesses is becoming more similar. The clear advantage of lower prices online is fading, and customers will start choosing where it’s more convenient to shop rather than just where it’s cheaper. As it becomes more expensive to attract new customers, finding great online deals isn’t as easy as it used to be.

Startups do impact traditional sectors, but these sectors often stay the same because they change slowly — like retail or TV. Even though startups appear in these areas, the industries usually continue on their usual path. Predictions of big declines in traditional businesses are often overstated because consumer habits don’t change quickly. However, some industries, like print media, have been completely transformed by e-commerce.

In cases like this, the change is more significant; for example, the print media sector may never return to its previous size. Startups are more likely to create entirely new sectors, sales channels, and consumer habits that didn’t exist before, offering new opportunities where traditional methods fall short.

Is this something you are currently interested in? Check out our careers page, and let’s keep the conversation going!