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How many times have you failed?

We all love reading the successful stories but they are scarce. Given that there are exponentially more failed projects, we could possibly learn more from them than we do from successful ones.

So what are your failures, why did it fail, and what would you do differently?

  1. 6

    I've failed more times than I can even remember.

    The most frequent failure I've always encountered was building products people didn't want.

    When building anything new, the only thing I do differently now is try to fail faster.

    After struggling with so many projects, you naturally learn to overcome the common mistakes.

    In my case, I always take the time to thoroughly validate ideas now.

    What about yourself?

    1. 1

      I agree, thanks for sharing! Do you use any mental frameworks now to validate your idea, or simply just launch ASAP?

      As for me, I just graduated from a non technical degree and I’m learning and coding tiny projects on the side. I kinda want to learn from others who have failed, hence this post. It sucks that I didn’t spend my college days trying things and failing. Was just a library rat studying for my gpa. 🙈

      1. 1

        I recently published an article outlining my framework for validating ideas now. It shares an in-depth background about how and why I failed in the past.

        As a non-techincal maker, I've also found no-code tools to be an invaluable way to quickly ship useful MVPs.

  2. 2

    You can learn a lot from other people’s failures - that’s actually the cheapest way to do it!

    I work in Tech-related finance - But getting my first job was a string of failures with a single success at the end that made it all worth it.

    I was a student from the Midwest, at an average school, and I wanted to work on Wall Street (silly idea, don’t do it). However, almost no one who works on Wall Street likes to interview people that are not IVY.

    So... I failed - almost 400 times, almost 100 times, almost 7 times, and succeeded only 2 times.

    Nearly 400 cold emails (this is acceptable as a student And if you are not emailing more that ~2 people in a team), with 75% no response rate.

    Nearly 100 phone calls to learn more about the job, with a less than 10% conversion to interviews.

    7 interviews, with only 2 job offers at the end.

    And you know what, it was worth it - and the takeaway is try hard, be thoughtful about it, expect failure and realize that luck always plays a part - meaning you shouldn’t beat yourself up when things don’t work out. HOWEVER, luck can only work if you are also working.

    So give luck a chance by creating situations that could maybe go your way, even if unlikely, while costing you little if they go against you.

    Another takeaway is that while you are younger people are more willing to help you. It would be awkward for a 40 year old to do what I did at 22... but that is only helpful to the young ones amongst us!

    Fun tangent related to this post:

    All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there
    – Charlie Munger

    Sometimes it is a good exercise to look at things you want to avoid to best see how to achieve what you want.

    Soviet Engineers & a 96 year-old billionaire saying the same thing here.https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/invert-always-invert-avoid-failure

    1. 1

      This is interesting, I am formally trained as an investment analyst based in Singapore so I guess we do have a similar path. I also love Munger and I'm glad you shared that quote. In fact, that quote is kinda the reason I posted this in the first place. And man, I feel your pain in applying for jobs.

      Was wondering, are you building stuff tech-related on the side? How do you balance it with a job on Wall Street? In Singapore, the hours are typically 8-10.

      1. 1

        So, I recently switched to VC from PE/IB because there are not enough hours in the day. I probably averaged 90 hours a week in IB and maybe 70-80 in PE. In those situations you have very little time, let alone the energy (people forget you need sleep AND time awake doing things that are not mentally taxing), to do much outside of your job.

        So - no, in those situations I could not do anything. I tried - automatic SEC filing data scrapping and updates and language learning social networking - but you get derailed by four weeks of live deals and then you don’t even remember where you left off. If you have people working with you, they can’t deal with a team member that goes missing every couple months for a few weeks.

        In those jobs, you are sacrificing your time for an outsized paycheck and opportunity to work for someone else in the future who will pay you a really outsized paycheck when you are 40. For some people, that is the right risk/reward skew.

        I probably do 50-60 hours a week now and am trying to start a newsletter - essentially, I read and write English way better than I code, so trying to start something I am more likely to be able to do when tired - because I still have the random 90 hour weeks. In my old jobs I wouldn’t be able to have started this.

        So, sorry for the blunt-and-not-exciting response, but as I get older I realize I’m not Superman. I get sick. I get hurt. I get tired. I can’t think we’ll when tired. My family needs me. BUT I also can’t work for someone else forever. I also don’t need to make a million dollars a year. So why kill myself trying to?

        So I had to make a change - work 50 hours a week for someone else; work 40 hours a week for me and my family (the newsletter is a hobby, but real estate and side consulting have actual potential).

  3. 2

    I have failed twice.
    -Once trying to run a Wordpress agency. I quickly learn that service work was not my strong suit and we made almost no money. Would just work on constant revisions for a deliverable till the clients dropped off. That convinced me to focus on products for any future side hustle.
    -The other failure was a feedback management web application for public libraries in Scotland. I'll eventually write a longer post about that but the gist of the story is that I went through two free trial periods, got positive feedback from a lot of libraries, and this was meant to be the year when I actually sold/licensed the system to the government body I was working with (SLIC). But now with the pandemic the clients attention got focused elsewhere and with every passing month I lose hope that we're going to actually arrive at a good sale. This experience has taught me that in future projects I should charge from the start so even if there isn't a nice exit my time is reasonably compensated.

    1. 2

      Yeah. I also found service businesses to be a grind less fulfilling than a day job. It’s like, imagine your worst boss, and now have 5 of them all competing for your efforts.

      I’m trying the product route now.

      1. 1

        That sums it up perfectly 😅

    2. 2

      The good news is that their attention was diverted not by things we can control, thus there might not be any fault on your part. I hope you are still pushing through on your project though. It’s pretty good that there’s positive feedback. Don’t lose hope!

      Charging at the start probably works, but I’m sure the feedback you got is more valuable than the couple of thousands you would get from the initial tests.

  4. 1

    I started an overseas engineering business that I ultimately sold for pennies. I think my biggest failings were.

    1. not picking a clear niche and keeping focus. I tended to spend time talking to anyone who was interested, and making a huge variety of proposals.

    2. acting like a big business (which is what I knew) instead of being more scrappy. For example renting a nice office, writing procedures, hiring people. All before there was any clear revenue in sight.

    3. taking on a pretty large lump sum contract, then being shy about billing for changes. It always felt like we were one change away from payment and I was too eager to provide good customer service.

    On a positive note, I always made pay role and we were able to help everyone we let go find good jobs. Being transparent with employees helped keep my business failure from being a personal failure.

    1. 1

      Definitely a lot to learn here, especially when it comes to being shy to bill for changes. I personally and a lot of IndieHackers can relate to the struggle of convincing yourself you deserve to charge more. Just out of curiosity was this a civil engineering business?

      1. 2

        We did electrical engineering mostly and ultimately ended up doing payroll for other companies as one of our main revenue streams. Once we figured out how to do taxes and payroll in Indonesia, other foreign companies were happy to get our help doing the same (which is an example of the lack of focus theme.)

  5. 1

    @ltrntvly

    I kinda want to learn from others who have failed, hence this post.

    This is 100% commendable and I laud your efforts. That being said, you're going to have to fail, probably many times over, to succeed. It's inevitable and is the greatest teacher.

    I've got two startups under my belt and I'm on my third (my first as a solo-founder). One was a B2B SaaS and one was a B2C manufacturing co. One failed utterly and miserably and the other one got profitable in 10 months. Here's what I've learned since then:

    -Solve a problem.
    -Execute solving the problem really, really well.
    -Factor in the non-quantifiable 'luck' factor to become a unicorn.

    1. 1

      Thanks for sharing. I am expecting to fail even if I try my best, which gives me more comfort in just putting ideas out there. I agree and it is wise acknowledging the element of luck and I guess we should continue building more doors and hope luck knocks on it.

      Glad to know you are on your third!

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