As I have said, I don’t believe in people FAILING, I think its part of growing, gaining experience, and finding what we are really meant to be and do with our lives. Losing something might be positive, as they say in China.
Many people only think “small businesses” or startups fail. But while working in Deutsche Bank, there many internal failures – I especially remember the global launch of a new backend system marked “eSpear”….man that was a huge disaster and was eventually rolled back massively.
And an article I read today from search engine land titled Lets Celebrate Google’s Biggest Failures,
Some believe that anything Google touches is golden. Yesterday’s closure of Google Wave is another reminder of how this isn’t so. Below, a summary of important Google products that haven’t made the cut, over time.
Google Wave (May 2009 to August 2010) Google SearchWiki (November 2008 to March 2010) Google Audio Ads (January 2006 to February 2009) Google Video (January 2005 to January 2009) – ended up buying YouTube instead Dodgeball (May 2005 to January 2009) – could have become like foursquare Jaiku (October 2007 to January 2009) – could have become like twitter Google Notebook (May 2006 – January 2009) Google Catalogs (December 2001 to January 2009) Google Print Ads (November 2006 to January 2009) Google Page Creator (April 2006 to August 2008) Google Answers (April 2002 to November 2006)
And the search engine article goes on about each of these projects and the stories behind them. Thats not my purpose on this blog. My reason for showing this is to make people realize –
IT IS OK TO FAIL!
Do not be afraid to fail! Being afraid to fail will prevent you from taking the risks necessary to do something unique, something great! Digging in my collection of motivational posts I will share a few here regarding “Failure”:
There is no secrets to success, it is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failures.~Colin Powell
“You’re never a failure until you fail to get up.” -Evel Knievel
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently
“Failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.” -Brian Tracy
That last one from Brian Tracy is AWESOME. And its so freaking true, just keep getting up again, be the man in the arena! be the warrior. Sure, you’re gonna get dirty, have your critics, but it takes that to achieve success.
And you can also say Google failed in China. Or it exited, being one of the last international internet companies in China. This just shows you how these MAJOR corporations have the same difficulties as the small guys. AND THEY HAVE SO MUCH MONEY.
This should give hope to the startup entrepreneur. you can beat Google if you FOCUS.
But then….focusing means putting EVERYTHING on the line. All energy to one project, that can fail. That is my weakness, to put everything on 1 project for risk of failure. This is why I have a few various projects, but at the same time, having too many projects takes away resources of time and money…….and puts the risks of failure even higher.
Just food for thought here……..MAIN POINT – as a startup, don’t be afraid to fail – even the biggest guys, like Google, fail, but keep on going forward.
Comments
Failing is fine as long as you quantify and limit your downside so that failure does not equal death.
well….i think that is the “mistake” (is it raelly?) of an entrepreneur….they put their whole life on the line……
There is no secrets to success, it is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failures.~Colin Powell
I have that hanging up on the wall in our office – though I doubt any of our Chinese staff has stopped to read it.
@ Larry – Failure not being = to death is a great point my friend!
you know….i learned a lot from 1 internship i had at morgan stanley in NJ. it was cold calling……and i called residential between 4pm to 9pm…..
man, people said i was the most disrespectful person to call them when they were eating dinner. the names i was called, the screaming, the stories…
you know…that made me stronger..
and i went to the bars those nights, and would get shot down girl after girl, but you know what, it made me not afraid to get told off….not afraid for someone to say no to me. and after a certain point, someone says yes.