{"id":41483,"date":"2023-10-20T15:14:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/why-failing-at-your-startup-isnt-the-end-of-the-world-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:14:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:14:17","slug":"why-failing-at-your-startup-isnt-the-end-of-the-world-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/why-failing-at-your-startup-isnt-the-end-of-the-world-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Why failing at your startup isn’t the end of the world – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Jon Westenberg<\/em><\/p>\n

Everyone fucks up sooner or later – it\u2019s not the end of the world.<\/p>\n

I know this sounds like the same advice that entrepreneurs, creatives and freelancers hear every day.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re told that we can\u2019t give up. We can never stop trying. Quitting is for the weak. You only truly fail when you walk away. But there\u2019s a reason we repeat this advice.<\/p>\n

The reality is, every now and then you are going to fail. Because every now and then, you will reach a point of objective failure, where to continue, to keep trying, to just \u2018believe\u2019 would feel like a mistake – and it\u2019s at those points that you cannot give in.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a point where you have to accept that the path you have been on, the product you\u2019ve been building and the profession that has taken centre stage in your dreams are not the right fit.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not the end of the world.<\/p>\n

There is no shame in resetting<\/h3>\n

I think there\u2019s a real problem with how we view failure. When you\u2019re a multi-billionaire you\u2019re praised for all the times you missed a shot, fucked up and fell through. It\u2019s admirable.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re not yet at that level, when you\u2019re still going through those failures without a glimmer of success and without a big break, it feels like something to be totally ashamed of.<\/p>\n

But admitting you\u2019ve failed when you\u2019ve made a decent, thoughtful, carefully balanced call that you need to try a new idea, a new strategy or a new solution – that\u2019s a good thing. It means you won\u2019t waste any more time on a project that is going nowhere.<\/p>\n

Throwing in the towel doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re a loser or you\u2019ve given up on anything. It means you\u2019ve reset your priorities, your workload and your dreams, and you are about to get over it and find a brand new challenge – or a brand new way to take on the old challenge.<\/p>\n

There are some problems that cannot be solved<\/h3>\n

You are going to come up against some moments in your life, both professional and personal, where you can\u2019t win.<\/p>\n

No matter how much you believe, how focused you are or how productive you can be, there are always things that cannot be done. Or that simply cannot be done by you.<\/p>\n

When you reach these situations being able to identify the futility is incredibly important. Because if you can\u2019t do that you could waste the rest of your life tilting at a windmill and telling everyone it\u2019s a giant – nobody will be fooled.<\/p>\n

It might even be that your product is right, you\u2019re right, but the timing is wrong. The company is wrong. The strategy was wrong. Any of those things could mean that you\u2019ve hit a wall, and you need to burn everything and walk away and come back with something new.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to be a big enough person to see through your own reality distortion field.<\/p>\n

Iteration isn\u2019t losing<\/h3>\n

When we idolise the failures of billionaire founders and successful artists, we tend to only focus on their iterative process. What we call fuck ups were really tests, hypotheses and early versions of future successes.<\/p>\n

I think we\u2019ve reached a misunderstanding of what losing is. It\u2019s not missing your target market, making the wrong product or focusing on a bad solution. Those are all learning opportunities, not the end of the road.<\/p>\n

Losing is when you have reached a point at which there is no going forward and no going back.<\/p>\n

In fact, losing is when there is nothing left that you can do to save your ass. And you have to walk away. That\u2019s not the same thing as failure.<\/p>\n

When you fail, and you can\u2019t see a way out, there could be a chance to make some changes and take another shot. You can make a clean break and start again.<\/p>\n

Jon Westenberg is an entrepreneur, startup advisor and writer. You can<\/i> follow him on Twitter<\/i>. This piece was<\/i> originally published on Medium<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Follow<\/i> StartupSmart on<\/i> Facebook<\/i>,<\/i> Twitter<\/i>, and<\/i> LinkedIn<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jon Westenberg Everyone fucks up sooner or later – it\u2019s not the end of the world. I know this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60868,"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\/41483"}],"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=41483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}