Interesting Chart: Every Release Kills 50% Of Software Businesses

We analyzed 29,811 products from download.com to find how many software businesses survive their first release. This chart shows you the number of products per version (10,000+ for v1.0, 5,000+ for v2.0, etc.)

We see that every next release kills 50% or more software businesses.

Here is even more interesting chart: an average number of downloads per product for v1.0, v2.0, etc.

We see that v2.0 get 40% less downloads than v1.0. Why? Mostly because software developers make their second release much more powerful (and complex) than the first one. People who haven't used the very first version often can't figure out how to use v2.0.