Comments on: Talking About Failure

By: Women in Open Source » Joint Leap Technologies

Women in Open Source » Joint Leap Technologies — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:19:09 +0000

[...] error turn away countless talented women (and probably men as well). Many famous advice gurus and entrepreneurs talk about the importance of failure, yet these attitudes prevent such experimentation from [...]

By: Cheap_Condoms

Cheap_Condoms — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:04:48 +0000

I found that rather than read about data sets and the above mentioned conclusions I was far more interested in content that focused on "with hindsight, I would have rather done x". I was also interested in the misery loves company concept – since I have failed I'd rather read about other failures, than read about the guy (or the firm) that made it.

By: Cheap Condoms

Cheap Condoms — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:41:23 +0000

Five years ago started working on a pet project on new venture failure. Started off with a review of literature and found that there were academic papers that focused on papers but their results and insights were "trivial". As in you failed because you had insufficient capital, or didn't generate enough sales, or weren't able to collect on bills, or didn't have enough experience and so on.

By: cheap condoms

cheap condoms — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:12:56 +0000

That's where our lessons come from, our character, our…umm…testicular fortitude. We all know this intellectually. The problem is we still interpret the subjective experience as "bad" when we're in the midst of it;

By: George Morris

George Morris — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:30:18 +0000

Here you go, we’ve decided to start a new series on our blog just about our failures.

http://www.imulus.com/blog/index.php/2006/12/06/learning-from-failures-transitioning-sites/

Enjoy

By: Brian Berliner

Brian Berliner — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 05:35:52 +0000

Hi Brad,

I posted a related article to my blog titled “Search and Rescue, Death, and Failed Startups”. You can find it at:

http://www.brianberliner.com/2006/09/05/search-and-rescue-death-and-failed-startups/

What I learned doing Search and Rescue in Colorado and how analyzing Accidents in the outdoors can relate to startup failures. I hope you find it enjoyable.

-Brian

By: Steve Farber

Steve Farber — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 22:24:45 +0000

Every business book that you pick up (including mine) will tell you how important failure is. That’s where our lessons come from, our character, our…umm…testicular fortitude. We all know this intellectually. The problem is we still interpret the subjective experience as “bad” when we’re in the midst of it; therefore, we have to start by “re-framing” the experience of failure as a good sign–a sign that, ultimately, we’re moving in the right direction, not the wrong one.

By: Jawwad

Jawwad — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:05:45 +0000

Brad

Five years ago started working on a pet project on new venture failure. Started off with a review of literature and found that there were academic papers that focused on papers but their results and insights were “trivial”. As in you failed because you had insufficient capital, or didn’t generate enough sales, or weren’t able to collect on bills, or didn’t have enough experience and so on.

I found that rather than read about data sets and the above mentioned conclusions I was far more interested in content that focused on “with hindsight, I would have rather done x”. I was also interested in the misery loves company concept – since I have failed I’d rather read about other failures, than read about the guy (or the firm) that made it.

In the last five years, writing about my failures has been the best possible therapy (free or paid for) I could have managed for myself. Best of luck and I hope you have as much fun (http://bluescreen.alchemya.com) as I have had.

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 03:46:35 +0000

So did I and I’d list that as my most spectacular failure. Hopefully I’ll have the courage to write thoughtfully about it.

By: Brad Nickel

Brad Nickel — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 03:23:16 +0000

I learned alot from Interliant.

By: anon

anon — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 02:30:50 +0000

This is a very good and helpful strain at a very helpful time. My firm’s VC fund is about to have its first portfolio company tip over and it’s a pretty incredible experience being in the midst of it. This will be my first exposure to this – there is a lot to take away from this.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:48:01 +0000

You might find Ejovi Nuwere's blog interesting (Founder of FON USA), he had a good piece business failures some time back http://www.ejovi.net/2005/10/22/business-failures/

By: Murali

Murali — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 18:40:31 +0000

Thanks for addressing the missing point, and the most useful aspect to starters like me. Looking forward to learning from the failures of other successful Entrepreneurs.

By: Jerry Colonna

Jerry Colonna — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:24:37 +0000

That’s ‘cuz there are no “failures;” only “lessons learned.”

Amen to your observation.

By: Sumon

Sumon — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:10:33 +0000

Hi Brad,

As a 23-yearold Entrepreneur based in the UK this is refreshing to see being acknowledged. The UK and British entrepreneurs in general suffer from an embarrassment of admiting failure. This compounded with the lower acceptance of entrepreneurship amongst the Youth means that most people don’t even get out of the blocks.

I’ve been a serious Entrepreneur for a year-and-a-half and i’ve made mistakes which have meant the next time i pick myself up i’ve learnt a valuable lesson. In the lessons that i’ve learnt i’m happy to have admitted that i’ve failed because it gives me a different perspective on what i’m doing. Particularly for Young Entrepreneurs a wider acceptance that failure and experimentation are the key to success is a cultural shift that can be induced by people of your stature writing about it.

Afterall, how can we know what to do if it can’t be contrasted with what we shouldn’t do.

I look forward to hearing your experiences.

Sumon