It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)
FAILURE.
There's no way we can talk about START-UPS without talking about failure. General stats say that between 80 and 90 percent of all start-ups fail. The reasons they fail range from poor market research to finance problems to legal issues. There are so many possible variables with any new venture, and sometimes we launch something without ever thinking about failure.
I have 2 great failure stories... There are many, but I'll share 2.
The first one wasn't a "failure", but because I didn't do the work ahead of time, the business never launched.
I had an idea to start a coffee shop. I found the coffee. I liked coffee. I created a brand. I liked coffee. I signed a lease on a storefront. I was excited about this because I like coffee. Here was the problem: I had a full-time job. I didn't have the time to run this shop, and I didn't know what I was getting into until my wife said to me, "Are you crazy?" When she said that, I knew she was right. I failed to account for the needs of this new business. I had done some of the work, but not all of the work. Mundo Coffees never made it, but I learned some great lessons from that, the greatest of which is that my wife is almost always right!
The second business was a sure winner. I was in college, living in college-owned apartments (that's an important piece of information). I lived in a corner apartment that didn't have a window facing the door, so I decided to put a "peep hole" in the door. I found this kit at the hardware store for $2, and drilled a hole in the door and put it in. Problem solved. My next door neighbor asked me to put one in for him, so I bought a second one, charged him $10, and drilled into his door. This was a new business venture! $2 investment, 5 minutes of time, $8 profit. How many of these could I put in during the course of a week? No business plan needed, I just started putting them in and people kept asking... until the resident director asked me what I was doing. My argument was that I was improving the value of the property. He saw it another way, and made me agree to not put any more in and he would not report me to the maintenance department. That business failed!
In both of these illustrations, had I done some more work up front, I either might of determined a way to make them work, or I would have not spent the time and energy to get them going.
John Maxwell wrote a book called "Failing Forward". He talks about that fact that some great people failed, but one of the things they did was they persevered: they kept going and they didn't give up! One of the 7 principles he shares for "Failing Forward" is to "See Failure as Temporary" and to not get stuck in failure but to keep moving forward.
INC. Magazine shares a great article on Failing Forward, and they share "5 Tips for Failing Forward":
1) Have No Regrets: Life is too short to live with regret.
2) Accept Reality: The hardest part of failure is admitting it.
3) Don't Be a Victim, Be a Strategist: Correct and move forward.
4) Be Focused: Give the attention needed.
5) Approach Every Day as a School Day: Learn the lessons along the way.
You can read the full article HERE.
In both the business world, and the non-profit world, FAILURE IS A REALITY. Everything won't always work, but we can't live in fear of failure!
I would love to hear and share some of your FAILURE stories. I'm happy to keep some things confidential if you'd like, but please tell me your stories! We all learn best when we learn from each other! Send them to me HERE.
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." Albert Einstein
"Failure is not the opposite of success; it's part of success." Arianna Huffington
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Thomas A. Edison
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill
From last weeks post on START-UP, Ty shares this:
Hey Russ – Here’s my start-up story…
I hadn’t really thought about it in these terms, but I guess we are doing a start-up these days. It all began around 5 years ago when four of us who serve in some pretty challenging contexts found ourselves in a meeting in Indonesia that had to be radically altered because of a serious security concern. We cancelled the meeting, all of the local guys went home, and the foreign folks moved to a different hotel to “talk amongst ourselves” for a couple of days. While we were meeting, the seed for a new organization that could serve our friends in places like this and also provide a clear and safe identity for folks like us was planted. My role from the start was a combination of Originator and Organizer. Most of the Originator work was done as a team effort, and my role as the Organizer has been something I have primarily been responsible for up to today.
Your use of the term Movement is interesting. The need/opportunity for the start-up flows out of our mutual connection to a series of “movements” in Indo. However, for the sake of security, we cannot allow the organization we have started to be promoted in the way you would need to for it to become Movement-like on its own. Hope that makes sense. So, we quickly became on Organization and have focused on advancing purposeful projects in a sustainable way, and also developing a few systems to keep us on track. At this point, we are also pretty committed to NOT becoming an Institution, but instead are intending to remain flexible, focused and nimble.
Our start-up is a success so far. We are expanding our projects and funding base while still keeping it simple. 😎
I love my role as an Organizer. I’m involved in the higher-level discussions of purpose and strategy, and also able to be very hands-on in project planning and implementation, finance, communication, and development of organizational systems. I’m a generalist in a lot of ways…one who likes to and is gifted to do different kinds of stuff…so being able to contribute in several ways works well for me. I’m also the only one who is able to dedicate most of my time to the start-up, so some of this is also driven by necessity.
Things I'm Reading, Listening To, an Watching This Week:
Read John Maxwells book, "Failing Forward". Great encouragement to leaders on how to move forward when things don't look so great!
Seth Godin, who I have mentioned before, writes a great short post on IDEAS.
OK... On our way to church the other day, Gina says something like, "I miss those old gospel songs we used to sing!". We then spend the next 15 minutes of our drive singing every old gospel song we could, including this classic: Victory in Jesus and Johnny Cash singing this great: Do Lord. I'm sorry I can't share a recording of us singing in the car because it was amazing! These songs take us back in such a great way! Enjoy.
Aaron shared this APP with me and I'm checking it out this week. Todoist is a to-do list program that has some great features. Check it out!
My daughter Raylin told me to check out Anthony Ramos. He comes from the Broadway Play Hamilton, but has his own work. I enjoyed listening to some of his music today. Check him out! Anthony Ramos