The way we celebrate failures is by viewing them as successes. ~ Dan Martell
Most people never pick up the phone and most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You gotta act and you gotta be willing to fail. If you are afraid of failing, you won't get very far~SteveJobs
In Bangladesh the idea of making something your own, popularly known as startup, is just taking off. It will take few more years to build the eco-system, mature the community, and to ensure a full fledged support system. But among all these things we must not forget that building something is a process. One will meet failure, get rejected, and will feel demoralized some time. But that’s okay. It happens all the time.
Success does not come from nowhere
We often talk too much about success. $19 Billion acquisition of WhatsApp excites us much but not the hard work and quiet struggle behind it. As we all know by now that Brian Acton, Co-founder of WhatsApp was turned down by both twitter and Facebook before starting working on WhatsApp. Here is Brain Acton’s account on it:
[su_highlight background="#5483fa" color="#f3fdd5"]Networking with recruiters, venture capitalists, playing ultimate frisbee— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 20, 2009
Got denied by Twitter HQ. That's ok. Would have been a long commute.— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 23, 2009
Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure.— Brian Acton (@brianacton) August 03, 2009[/su_highlight]
It’s understandable that success excites us more. It’s Apple that reminds us the genius of Steve Jobs not NEXT. But we should not forget that success and failure are just two sides of the same coin and very closely intertwined. You can’t be successful without going through hardships and failures.
Be prepared, you will fail
Our eco-system players and startup founders should keep in mind that failure is not the end of the world rather the beginning of a new journey. Startup fails all the time. In fact most startups fail. The success rate is way leaner than the rate of failure. But truth is that no one succeeds unless he tasted the failure. Dan Martell puts it brilliantly:
No one I know ever came out of the gate with a win. It usually always got preceded with a failure, or two. ~ Dan Martell
In our society we have a mindset that does not accept failure as an essential part of the journey. But to inspire entrepreneurship and to create startups we must not limit our effort in patting back on success, we should stand with people who fail as well. We should support people in need so that they find a reason to keep trying. Failure often increase one’s odd of success.
Every time you fail, you get closer to success
I can absolutely say that if I hadn't spent 1.5 years working on a startup which did not succeed, there is no way I could have had some early success with Buffer as quickly as I did. ~Joel, Founder & CEO, Buffer
Failure puts us in a better position to succeed. Seth Godin proclaimed “with every failed attempt you become closer to success. I fail more than you, I win.”
Failure is an opportunity
Every entrepreneur fails through their path! We all fail periodically but for me it’s not about failing but about building on all experiences and using that experience to make things better going forward.~Samantha Morshed, Founder, Hathay Bunano
Failure is an opportunity in disguise. It tells us what works and what does not. Failing in a venture gives us necessary lessons to make next one a success.
To make progress we must get over our conventional mindset of failure avoidance and must accept failure as opportunity to learn. We all run for success without considering no journey is worth taking without few zigzags. We see failure as lack of capacity and sign of not getting success ever. But failure is important and we need to encourage failure and stand besides team that fails.
Have you ever failed? Do you have an intriguing story of failure? Have you learned any intriguing lesson from failure? or have a perspective on failure? Send your story, write-up, perspective on failure, or learning to us at [email protected]. We will take it to the world.
