Beginning Again
Sometimes things do not work out. But that is not the end of the world because the next step is to start again.
Building high-potential startups is hard, and many elements must come together in the right sequence and balance to ultimately weave together a success. Yet statistically, many more fail than succeed.
What that means for a serial entrepreneur is that, at some point, you are likely to face the difficult decision to abandon a venture when it becomes clear that there is no longer a workable path forward (more on that in coming posts). And, once you have made that decision and closed things down (hopefully in an orderly, high-integrity fashion), then you need to decide what to do next.
For some, the cost of the last venture was too great – and they decide to pursue a more well-trodden path and join an established organization to follow a different career path. This choice is often about reaching the justified conclusion that being an entrepreneur is just not a good fit for them personally. Frankly, for many people, the combination of risk, responsibility, and lack of resources that surrounds being an entrepreneur is not what they want to do. Many realize that before they ever take the plunge, but some need to try it before realizing that what they have heard, read, or seen is not reflective of the day-to-day, in-the-trenches grind of building a startup. Figuring this out is first and foremost about knowing yourself at a deeper level and getting greater clarity on what you value and enjoy. Personally, I think those who discover these truths about themselves earlier have the potential to find a better fit sooner and to enjoy their work more fully and longer. More power to them! Entrepreneurship is absolutely not for everyone!
And for others, the need to succeed leads them to seek out a new opportunity and begin again. Hopefully, the failure of the last venture was rooted in some clearly discernable causes – and those lessons learned can improve the chances of success in the next venture. I have had some failures in my journey – and each time, I took away a learning or three that helped refine my skills as a venture-backed entrepreneur (note that I am highlighting the venture-backed aspect because it creates some time-boundaries that are important considerations that I only learned to fully appreciate over time). If I put four of my ventures into two buckets – high-flyers (x2) versus failures (x2), I notice some patterns. For example, in the failure cases, the ventures were premised on some radically innovative technologies that required substantial development timelines. While all four required substantial product development work (hence the need for venture capital!), the failures had long development cycles that stretched many months due to the nature of the complex underlying technologies versus the high-flyers that could be iterated on in a matter of weeks. The high-flyers had much more agility in their product development processes than the failures – and it was inherent in the nature of the innovative approaches we were using. As a founder, I did not initially appreciate how those long and repeated development cycles that would extend the product development phase into five or more years would present tremendous fundraising challenges and difficulties developing and maintaining momentum. A second pattern I noticed is that I did not initially appreciate how absolutely critical it was to have a simple, immediately attractive product description at my fingertips to capture the interest of potential customers. The high-flyers were built around product concepts that could be articulated in less than a dozen words to generate immediate amazement and interest from potential customers. The failures were built around deeply technical innovations that, while potentially high-impact, were difficult to explain, requiring lengthy engagement to ponder the complexities and contemplate the potential.
One often hears that failure is a great teacher – and that entrepreneurs who have experienced failure bring something valuable to their next venture. I believe this is at least partially true. Ideally, one can extract both successful and not-so-successful elements from each experience. For me, I keep those examples above front of mind when exploring a new beginning. When I think about a next venture, I screen for how easy the concept is to explain to the target audience (it does not matter as much whether other audiences implicitly understand it) and I examine carefully the underlying nature of the technology innovation and level of development already achieved to see if the idea is something that can be developed to market readiness in double to triple the amount of time the lead technologist estimates. Of course, these are only a couple of the critical dimensions I have learned about in two decades of building startups. Still, hopefully, it gives you a taste of the opportunity you have before you when you tie off a failure and move on to look ahead to the next new beginning.
New beginnings are complicated, and it is emotionally and sometimes tactically hard to leave behind the old in a way that positions you to tackle the new. However, if the entrepreneurship drive is in your heart and the past failure is something that can be dissected to extract the learnings and confirm that you indeed have the raw materials to build a success, it can absolutely be the right thing to grieve and then move ahead with hope and determination to the next thing.
