Wavering between success and failure : the path taken by an innovative start-up

It is tempting to rationalise in hindsight the success or failure of a start-up‚ giving the impression that its path was quite simple and predictable in the end (what Nassim Nicolas Taleb calls a ‘narrative fallacy’). However, very often, the line between success and failure remains ambiguous and uncertain for a long time. This is even more true of Internet start-ups notably because of an innovation approach which is based on very rapid and iterative testing. The story of Pealk, a young, French start-up which developed a successful web application for professionals on social networks and was bought by the French company Viadeo at the end of 2012, illustrates this sort of path which is impossible to plan. However, this does not mean that it is impossible to learn lessons from this which may inspire other entrepreneurs.