Entrepreneur David S. Rose, responding to the question, cited a CB Insights study that listed the top three reasons cited by founders of failed companies as the following:

1. No market need (42 percent).

2. Ran out of cash (29 percent).

3. Not the right team (23 percent). The last placed far ahead of such commonly cited flaws as lack of customer focus, a poor product, lousy timing or poor marketing.

Respondent Roger Ehrenberg, managing partner at IA Ventures, and a former angel investor, put it quite bluntly: "THE WRONG PEOPLE, hands down. All other problems are a derivative."

Picking up on the theme, Ninh Tran, co-founder of Hiretual, a sourcing platform that combines recruiting with science, offered considerable data gleaned from research into the number of applicants who apply for jobs with companies of various sizes. He argued convincingly that, since most start-ups have fewer than 10 applicants per position, they are not doing a deep dive into the talent pool.

Writing for the online source ERE Media, he said: "Hands down, the reason why most startups fail is the wrong people, which may include the founders themselves. That's why having a master recruiting and hiring strategy is one of the wisest decisions that any startup founders can choose."

Even with such a strategy, the data cited by Tran suggests that start-ups will always face a major challenge when staffing up for their run at the gold ring. With large employers sweetening their benefits packages and amping up bonuses as the talent wars intensify, start-ups with the standard funding levels just can't compete for today's top performers.