The corporate world is drowning in ideas. They think plenty big. But producing big–now, there’s the clear challenge. Consider too the fragile nature of start-up companies.

Despite the hype that surrounds the few successes, research by Harvard Business School senior lecturer Shikhar Ghosh found that 75% of venture capital-backed start-ups–presumably the creme de la creme of the start-up world–failed to return the capital to their investors (let alone generate positive returns).

Of those companies, 95% failed to hit the financial milestones laid out in their business plans. Of the more than 10,000 software companies that have received venture capitalist funds since 2003, only 40 ultimately became worth more than $1 billion. That’s 0.4%.

Read the rest on the Economic Times here