Failure Is An Opportunity

Founding a startup is a huge leap of faith. Most startup fail. Yes, that means your’s too. However, failure is okay. There are many things to learn from failure.

Failure Isn’t Fun

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

• Abraham Lincoln

No one likes failure. No one wants to fail. Even people who say, “I love failing! I learn so much,” Don’t like to fail. Everyone wants to be successful in every aspect of their life.

Realize, this is not possible.

The good news is that most people will only remember your success. Tenacity is a sign of a success. Try to hear no once a day, or try to get something free everyday. Doing this will harden you and train your mind in understanding potential failures can lead to great things.

Startups Are About Failing

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

• Winston Churchill

Learn Quickly. If you don’t like failing. Don’t do a startup.

Steve Case and Eric Ries state that startups should fail fast. It is important to understand what that actually means. The term doesn’t mean take a lot of outside capital and then blow the money in 3-6 months. Then say, “We failed fast.”

The purpose of the failing fast is in regards to experimentation. Part of a startup is running experiments and learning quickly from them. Abandon what fails and hold on to what succeeds.

Failing is learning. Whether you take external capital or are bootstrapping you need to understand that you need to be efficient with your capital.

You need to constantly experiment and figure out where your capital is best utilized. Is it to spend money on sales and marketing? Is it to build that one critical feature? What is the next thing you need to do to get more revenue in the front door. The faster you identify how to make money, the faster you will be able to extend your runway and reduce your burn rate.

The Edge Case

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.

• Coco Chanel

In software, there are edge cases. Edge cases are ways the product isn’t generally used. If the majority of businesses fail, then success is an edge case. Your businesses success will be defined on whether you find the edge case fast enough. You can’t concern yourself with the business failing while you are putting all your energies in it to succeed.

Have one eye on your burn rate, but have the other eye and your brain focused on identifying things your customers want. Pleasing your customers, will pay off. Happy Customers bring more potential customers.

The Worst Case

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

• Benjamin Franklin

You Will Know Failure! I love this quote. Every successful person was a failure at some point. It takes failures in order to find success.

What is the actual worst case?

If you live in an area needing your skill sets, the worst case scenario is: find a job. This shouldn’t be a problem for anyone deciding to try their hand at a startup. If you want to do a startup, then you probably have the skill set to find a job. If you found a company, than you either know how to sell, how to market, or how to develop.

I guarantee the need for your skills are always in high demand.

Thought Exercise

In 10 years from now will you be happier if you attempted this or will you be happier if you never tried?