{"id":39903,"date":"2023-10-20T15:05:07","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/this-business-tragedy-left-richard-branson-gutted-what-he-did-next-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:05:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:05:07","slug":"this-business-tragedy-left-richard-branson-gutted-what-he-did-next-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/this-business-tragedy-left-richard-branson-gutted-what-he-did-next-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"This business tragedy left Richard Branson “gutted”: What he did next – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Virgin Group founder Richard Branson has faced the wrath of countless competitors, but despite encountering \u201cthe business version of The Godfather\u201d, his secret to success is to keep a focus on future projects.<\/p>\n

In an in-depth chat with NPR\u2019s Guy Raz for the How I Built This<\/em><\/a> podcast, Branson reflects on\u00a0his insanely long list of business ventures\u2014from the launch of Virgin Records in the 1970s, to starting his own airline and trying to topple Coca-Cola with his very own cola brand.<\/p>\n

The entrepreneur is well versed in corporate failure, but it was it was the death of a pilot on board a test flight for his Virgin Galactic project that really made Branson stop and think about moving forward with a business project.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 12 hours, I wasn\u2019t sure whether it was worth continuing,\u201d Branson tells Raz, saying he was \u201cgutted\u201d by the news and had to reevaluate his goals to send hundreds of people into space.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath, Branson\u00a0\u201ctalked to all of our staff, met the relatives, and dealt head on with the press,\u201d he says. It was a period of slowdown, according to the entrepreneur, who says he now no longer gets ahead of himself by putting a date on when they\u2019ll finally make it into space.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to learn from it to make sure it never happens again,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Read more: SmartCompany\u2019s top 20 business podcasts of 2016<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Galactic project experience is just one Branson\u2019s numerous attempts to start companies after personally facing frustrations with products and then trying to deliver services better himself. In the podcast, he and Raz discuss how he chooses a winning idea in the first place\u2014and how he knows when it\u2019s time to fold a business.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly go into businesses where you’re palpably better than the competition,\u201d he says when reflecting on a big lesson from the Virgin Cola project, which saw the soft drink alternative eventually crushed by the power Coca-Cola.<\/p>\n

And how does he deal with the pain of shutting down ideas he feels passionate about? By moving on to new, shiny projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy then, I\u2019d already moved onto new challenges,\u201d he says when discussing how Virgin Cola fell prey to Coke\u2019s business\u00a0prowess.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment I realise it\u2019s not going to succeed, I will have forgotten about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to the full \u201cHow I Built This\u201d episode here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on SmartCompany<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson has faced the wrath of countless competitors, but despite encountering \u201cthe business version of The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39903"}],"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=39903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}