What have you learned the most from failure?
Aaron O'Leary
69 replies
Failure is one of the best educators and whilst it hurts at the start it can really set you up for success. What have you learned from failure?
Replies
Farooq (SF Ali) Zafar@sfali789
1. There is no "failure", there is only experience.
2. One's "failure" is another's extreme "success".
3. "Failure" is a state of mind, not a state of being.
4. Commitment starts and consistency finishes.
5. Ease threatens progress more than hardship.
6. "Success" is romanticized as "failure" demonized.
7. Internal contentment > external expectations.
8. Nobody cares about your W/L like you assume.
9. Perfection is shooting the shot, not scoring.
10. "Failure": things didn't go my way? That's life.
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Sales Sparrow by True Sparrow
- Don't launch MVP's launch MLP's Minimal Lovable Products.
- Iterate frequently and fast! Nothing in a product is ever complete; there is always more to do.
- Don't be scared to make mistakes but learn from them.
- There is no way around the process!
Great question. Here's my take from working in a startup:
Fall in love with the product, not the team.
> It's easy to get swept up in the founders' story, but they may not be around the whole time as you scale.
Let your customers tell you what category you’re in.
> You can't tell people you're game-changing or innovative... unless you customers tell you.
You don’t need to act on everyone’s advice.
> Especially if they aren't going to pay your bills.
It’s normal to feel like crap most of the time, but celebrate the small wins.
> In other words - go in with a growth mindset. Some days it's going to get hard...
:)
Angle Audio
that it is NEVER as bad as it feels in the moment.
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Elephas
1. That your users do not care about the technologies you use.
2. Premature optimization is the root of evil. I built a whole project on the serverless tech that no one used.
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@kambanthemaker Definitely first one I used to obsess over what tech I used thinking people cared
WhiteLabel
Your circle influence you a lot!
I launched my first startup back in 2018. As a tech founder, most of my connections were from dev community. They used to talk and brag a lot about how cool their tech stacks are in their company or for a pet project.
This is not a bad thing and this is how dev world works anyway. But I felt low as everyone was opposing my preferred stack (had 6 years of experience) and I didn't want to build my MVP on that. So I went with a new one, with relatively low experience, and without surprise it took months. I would have done it in weeks with the one I was comfortable with. Needless to mention it did not generate any significant revenue.
As my network eventually changed from devs to founders and investors, I understood how wrong I was and how important it is to launch fast. Launched another product a couple months ago, used a no-code builder, and it started generating revenue from week 1.
You need to come out of your lala land and think from multiple perspectives to grow, even if it requires crashing everything.
Had I done this with Dictozo.com it could have 100K users now. I always cared about making it perfect before telling to people.
Being honest with other people about your own failures gives you a great opportunity to connect, share the experience and learn together
If I wanted to use a cliché, I would say that it is a step nearer to whatever destination one would call success, but I think in certain ways – even labelling an endeavour as "failure" or "success" can be a trap that we should avoid. Neither “success” nor “failure” is a destination.
If I saw my own mental picture of success as a destination, and upon arrival, I decided to unpack the car after the journey and kick back while I crack open a beer, it's unlikely I'll spend very long in that place I imagine to be "success."
This is not at all an admonition to never unpack the car, kick back, and crack open a beer.
For a long time, I adopted Ralph Waldo Emerson's definition (which I found on one of the first pages of a Tony Robbins book – Unlimited Power, but that is neither here nor there) as perfectly acceptable. But as I accumulated more wrinkles and continued to observe, I realised that it may have been the perfect definition for a time in the past.
These days I see success more as a state-of-mind, an indicator of how we play the cards dealt to us in any specific moment. Do I spend every waking hour in this supposedly blissful state of mind? "No, siree! Most definitely not."
We're all alive and that means that we should never be stationary - even when it is in the "success" state of mind. Challenges occur and I sometimes get anxious or irritable or so sad that I'm crying my eyes out.
But contentment, success, kindness, and gratitude are always the place that I do my best to veer towards even when current circumstances are challenging. Life is probably more challenging for most people than what it was five years ago. There is more unemployment, poverty, crime, and scams than ever before. Throwing in the towel would be totally understandable.
But continuing to show up every day – regardless of whether we had to crawl there, and bringing along our “I choose hope and optimism” badge – that is the true litmus test (in my own admittedly unconventional mind) of inhabiting success. If we manage to do it without turning a blind eye towards people facing worse challenges all around us, and with boundaries in place just healthy enough not to be completely self-obsessed, but yet solid enough to prevent the scamsters from targeting us. If we do that – we are not failing at anything. At least – we’re not failing, yet.
We launched our travel tech product right at the beginning of COVID-19. We have applied to 25 different startup programs and were rejected 25 times but did not stop and won the TBC business award in Georgia on our 26th try. So out of these 25 failures, we learned how to win.
Get up and move on 💪
Growth Hackers Guide To Producthunt
That the line between failure and success is fragile because you can't foresee the long-term effects of a result.
What is considered a success can lead to the enlargement of the ego.
Also, if you surrender to reality, you can't lose if you keep trying and let go of the results of your actions.
Vmaker for Windows
Failures are hard taskmasters.
It clobbers you on the face, bringing into attention all that you have been ignoring, holding on to, avoiding or resisting.
Over the years, I have come to realize that failures are like those blows you have to take to make yourself stronger.
Being open to failures and embracing the outcomes is a potent formula for professionals to achieve remarkable results in their career.
- sell first
- write well
- do it like your life depends on it (or don't bother)
- if you give an inch they'll take a mile
- hedging is the enemy - go all in or not at all
- when you're 99% sure they'll buy it, raise the price
The greatest impact on humanity has never been created by the good little boys and girls who did what they were told.
- The inability to learn from the mistakes of others has already taken away several years of my life. I do too many actions “for experience”, but my head is not made of iron — if it constantly beats against the wall, then one day I may not get up.
- Creating a technological product alone is the same as trying to move a mountain. Either you have to crush rocks for ages and drag them, or you will break yourself at the very beginning of the journey. Startup needs a stable team, and it needs an organized leader.
- There is no point in developing an MVP for months — it burns motivation and does not bring money. Rapid testing of hypotheses is the thing we need. Getting out to users as soon as possible and collecting feedback is the highest good. A detailed market research at the stage of the developing of an idea is the best solution that allows to nip 90% of unpromising projects in the bud.
- We should not "play" too much with manual labor, especially if there are not enough hands. It quickly becomes a routine, and a routine that does not bring high results kills the desire to do what seemed to be a favorite thing three months ago.
- Planning is a thankless task, but I can't find like-minded people without a plan. I've enjoyed inventing startups for too long and disliked building a working business for too long.
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@sergey_arlov This. "There is no point in developing an MVP for months", see it time and time again and I've done it myself. Waiting until something is perfect it will never launch
@aaronoleary, yes, exactly! "There is nothing more eternal than temporary things". It's always like "Well, we are not good enough, let's make it a bit better and then launch". but you never know are you good enough or not if this opinion is only in your own head. I have had many many similar situations, so I understand you 100%
@aaronoleary and I'm very happy that we didn't repeat this mistake when we launched Listva 2 days ago. Yes, there is only one function in MVP, but we have the opportunity to constructively and substantively communicate with users, listen to feedback and adjust the strategy of development
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@sergey_arlov Love to see this growth!!
There are only two things in this life. Success and learning. Learning is the key of the success. Most of time, learning comes from failure. That's why, we have to keep going on our road with our failures. I have learnt this.
I learned that this whole startup/entrepreneurship thing is really for me.
Sealit
Acceptance. I learned to accept situation and stay ego-less 😄
featureOS
Two life-changing things:
1. Patience
2. Perseverance