All of us thrive off success. Succeeding makes us unbelievably happy (and cocky), and reading stories about successful entrepreneurs always make us feel like we can achieve anything in the world. However, we tend to overlook the fact that success does not come overnight- in fact, it is riddled with years of failure, constant struggle, and relentlessness. Joy is a result of several moments of pain, frustration, and of course, sadness. Success cannot be achieved without defeat, over and over again. Strangely enough, defeat is not appealing to anyone, but everyone celebrates success.
However, we must accept failure as a part of life. Those who view it as a loss never manage to move forward. Failure is only a pathway that leads to success. All successful entrepreneurs have multiple instances of failure that the world does not know about. Loads of broken stories, wasted time, and unfulfilled goals lie behind posters of successful entrepreneurs. You must remember that the road to success is not always laid out with flowers and carpets. In fact, it is laden with thorns. The thing about successful entrepreneurs is that regardless of how many times they fail, they continue to try.
In this article, you will read about some findings from entrepreneurial failures. Today, all these individuals are incredibly successful, but their journey to success has not been covered by the media. Here are the mistakes they made along the way and the lessons they learned:
Hiten Shah, Co-Founder at KISSmetrics Reveals that $1,000,000 was Wasted on a Company that Never Even Launched.
Hiten Shah and his co-founder ended up spending $1,000,000 trying to establish a web hosting company. However, this company never saw the light of the day. The worst mistake that these two made was that they were so passionate about their goal and wanted the company to be so perfect that they forgot to pay attention to what the market was actually looking for.
Shah and his co-founder learned that customer feedback is of utmost importance when establishing a business. They vowed to spend smartly and focus on learning. Since then, Hiten went on to co-found two brilliant analytics companies that turned out to be successful.
Robin Chase, Co-Founder of Zipcar, says that They First Built a Website and Then Asked Customers About It
Robin Chase reveals that when she co-founded the social online ridesharing company, GoLoco, she realized that a huge sum of money was spent on the website and software. However, this was in vain because they did not pay attention to their first customers or ask them for feedback on how the website could be improved.
It is important to always take feedback from customers, especially when launching a new business venture. What may be a brilliant idea for you may not work as well when executed. Customers and the market are the only way you can find out what works and depict trends for future revenue. Without this process, you will have to unlearn everything and start over.
Robin Chase is the Founder and CEO of Buzzcar. Another famous company, Zipcar, is also founded by her where she is the former CEO.
Rand Fishkin, CEO of Moz and Co-Founder of Inbound.org, says that Building Big Bang Projects was One of the Biggest Mistakes Made at Moz.
Fishkin revealed that many “big bang” projects were made at Mox that required long-term development. However, much progress was not visible. Even though it worked a few times, when a recent project sprung up in the fourth quarter of 2011, they were not able to deliver it in time. The project kept getting delayed. This was an embarrassing time for Fishkin.
In the startup world, if you do not meet your deadlines or budget for a few months or more than a year, the people around you know that you have failed. Your startup is seen as a failure without any chance of success. Hence, using agile development is important. Always be aware of the progress you and your company are making, and ensure that all members of the team are accountable to each other.
Leo Babauta, a Best-Selling Author, Worked Too Hard at a Job He Hated
Leo Babauta reveals that he stuck by a job that he passionately hated. He continued to work for it for many years, and he worked extremely hard. He put in his all, even though he did not see himself sticking by the job in the future.
One of the main reasons for this was because he was terrified of failure. He did not have sufficient belief in himself. This lack of faith held him back from starting a blog or building his own business from scratch. If he had not been so scared, he would have built his dream career a decade earlier.
Today, Babauta is an entrepreneur, as well as a best-selling author known to the world.
Conclusion
As we grow up, we tend to take success at face value. It becomes something that is white or black- there is no grey area. Either you are successful, or you are not. However, we tend to forget that all our lives, we have faced failure yet never given up. Think about it- crawling children never get tired of learning how to stand and walk on their own two feet. It could take days or months, but the thought of failure never seems to occur to their innocent minds.
Similarly, an entrepreneur knows that if he wants to be successful, he needs to try and fail and then try again. These successful entrepreneurs made several mistakes in their journey to success. However, the one thing that all of them have in common is that they did not give up. Let this be a lesson for all aspiring entrepreneurs- focus on what you want, and get ready to fail. We promise that failure is only a road to success.
