No links, but observation and experience.

1. Too much expectations : bad pricing, bad marketting, and rapid expansion of expenses before profit.
2. Mismanagement, letting the hole grow when you think its still Ok.
3. Ego , personality conflict and unnecessary fighting when there's not even enough money to share.
4. Overhead : much like mismanagement and too much spending
5. Competition : inevitable, usually comes from bigger companies. But ties in with too much expectations, those who are unwilling to fight will lose, plain and simple.
6. Work hours, too little or too much, not enough resting and maintenance and review. Too much time and energy wasted on codes of ethics, dress code, lunch break enforcement.

1 lack of planning
2 lack of knowledge
3 inability to deal with people both customers and employees
4.lack of funding - relates to business plan
5.poor customer service
6.over or under pricing
7.poor marketing / advertising
9.over spending or needless spending
10. lack of control and organization with self or business.
this list could probably include about 1000 other things but basically the thought is no planning or thought put into a plan and little or no follow up

over confidence
not enough knowledge on the field
lack of communication
comment cards, learn from criticism
No market research

why are you focusing of failure?

but this is your answer:

lack of plan, lack of investigate before invest, spending all your money at the beginning and have no money to keep going, lack of Planing, and being scared