{"id":39274,"date":"2023-10-20T15:01:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/failure-to-launch-page-2-of-2-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:01:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:01:43","slug":"failure-to-launch-page-2-of-2-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/failure-to-launch-page-2-of-2-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Failure to launch &#8211; Page 2 of 2 &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBut the problem with Booking Angel was that restaurants would only pay when they got a reservation and they were only getting a few extra reservations a day. I knew that if I could generate a lot more traffic for them that they would pay a lot more.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen I found out about a business that was doing exactly what I wanted to do. That business was Groupon.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I spoke to the guys at (tech incubator) Pollenizer about what I\u2019d learned and we set up Spreets.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBooking Angel is still alive and making reservations, although no-one\u2019s really driving it \u2013 but it\u2019s still my baby and I\u2019ll find it hard to let it go, which is one of the biggest problems business owners have, knowing when it\u2019s time to let go of an idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Amanda Falconer<\/h2>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One business owner who didn\u2019t have the problem of walking away from a failed initiative is Amanda Falconer.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As she explained: \u201cIn my late 20s I had a business making pyjamas and bathrobes and started selling through David Jones and boutiques and doing reader offers with ACP Magazines (publisher of Cleo and Cosmopolitan).<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen Cosmo asked me to do a Valentine\u2019s Day offer for some men\u2019s boxer shorts. I didn\u2019t understand the complexities of boxer shorts and they were a disaster, badly cut with a terrible design.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had loads of boxers left on my hands and Vinnies ended up inheriting a whole lot of badly shaped Valentine\u2019s Day boxers that year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That experience and a couple of other bad decisions prompted Falconer to do some serious introspection about the future of the enterprise.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was managing everything about the business and I knew that if I wanted to go to the next level I would have to employ staff and expand what I was doing because I didn\u2019t even have enough time to step away from the business to do a business plan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So she decided to fold the business and go back to full time employment.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Since then she has again braved the start-up world, establishing the <a target=\"_blank\" title=\"Sydney Small Business Centre\" href=\"http:\/\/sydneysmallbusinesscentre.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sydney Small Business Centre<\/a>, a source of advice for small business owners.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Falconer says in her experience \u201cif a business has a problem, nine times out of ten it\u2019s a marketing problem.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsually the business owner is so involved in the business they can\u2019t stand back and see what needs to be done to solve their problems. Usually they need to get outside assistance to help them over this hurdle,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She has some advice to entrepreneurs who might be struggling to recover from a business failure.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy biggest thing was thinking I wasn\u2019t good enough \u2013 that\u2019s what held me back. But I knew more than I gave myself credit for,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s also important to stick to your knitting \u2013 work out what you\u2019re good at and stick to it. Don\u2019t take every piece of work that walks through the door.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s OK to turn away some business because it will allow you to focus on what you\u2019re good at, which will ultimately drive the success of the business,\u201d she advises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBut the problem with Booking Angel was that restaurants would only pay when they got a reservation and they were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}