Failure: It’s All In The Math
As you know, being an entrepreneur is very different from being an employee. Probably the biggest difference is how failure is looked at. See, I’m going to let you in on a secret. Something that your former boss never told you. In fact, they probably are not aware about it.
As an entrepreneur, you have to ditch the right first time mentality for an test and measure – incremental improvement philosophy. When I explain this to my “employee” friends they think that I am making an excuse for failure. This is a typical reaction for someone who works in a cocooned environment. So, lets look at why many large organizations promote a right first time mentality.
It’s actually a microcosm of what VCs do. You see, in a large organization if it takes ten tries to get one success then ten employees can try ten different things with only one being a success. Nine out of the ten are deemed failures with one deemed a success. The objective has been achieved, but there has been nine failures.
In a start-up scenario, the same occurs except in a linear fashion. Instead of ten employees failing nine times to succeed once, one entrepreneur must try ten things to find one that works. I know there are other factors such as learning from past mistakes and the effect of incremental improvement. However, the above example highlights my point.
As an entrepreneur, you need your helicopter license at the ready, because the view from up there really helps.
