When launching a new business, project or idea I believe every switched on entrepreneur should work hard to fail as quickly as possible.
“What?!” I hear you ask…
Yes, Failure (with a big F) is the new success! It is, in fact, often more useful to fail than be successful. Let me explain why…
To take you back to yesterday’s metaphor, when I go skiing I constantly look to try new things:
Conquoring steer slopes, jumping bigger jumps and speeding through narrower chutes is what excites me.
All of these activities require a significant improvement in skill.
The thing about “skill” is that it is kind of like “potential”: Difficult to measure until you’ve actually used it.
When it comes to skiing, the only real measure of skill happens when you head down the extremely steep slope… without really knowing if you’re going to make it out okay. If you’ve got enough skill, you exit the chute (or jump etc) feeling good. If you’re not quite there yet, you fall over, get up and do it again.
The biggest problem I see in beginner entreprenures is the “imaginary business” attitude. This is when someone dreams up a brilliant business idea but procrastinates taking “the leap” because of fear of failure.
When you’re inexperienced and your business is still somewhat “imaginary” failure should be deliberately sought after.
It’s simple: the real world will test your ideas more thoroughly than your imagination ever could.
If you DO fall down, the process of picking yourself up and trying again will enable you to effectively “up-skill”
… this makes the next idea that much more likely to succeed.
Thanks for this advice man. I’m 21 years old, i live in the caribbean and work a few odd jobs ( a little bit of baking with my mom and other stuff on the side). The money isn’t much but i like doing stuff with my hands and spend the rest of my time working through ideas that can be valuable to the public. I plan to go back to school full time and do computer engineering and maybe even meet a cool co founder who i can partner up with.
If you’re willing to work and you’re willing to learn … and to keep at both of those for ever and ever…. you’ll win Jordan!