Failure – an Inevitable Part of Success
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You must have heard this a trillion times, “the loftier the goal, the farther you fall.” But this is something that should not stop you from progressing. Taking failure as a learning experience isn’t an easy task, but in order to succeed, you must know what failure is.
Remember Thomas Edison? When asked about his feelings regarding facing failure a 1000 times, he replied that the light bulb was an invention with “a thousand steps.”
Let’s start with the reasons why startups fail:
Arrogance
Shortsightedness
Hubris
Egotism
Inflexibility
None of these words are new to you; remember the last time someone’s arrogance or inflexibility made the situation even worse?
LACK OF CAPITAL
In the beginning, insufficient capital might lead to failure of the business. Running day-to-day operations might cost a lot, and if the money you have is a lot less than what you are spending, things end up going wrong.
EXPANDING WITHOUT KEEPING TRACK
Expansion is a difficult step for a start-up, from personnel, to equipment (May it be machinery or establishing plants). All the steps involved in expansion need to be fully funded. Also, if the startup becomes a success, and needs to expand urgently, it should have a plan devised for it.
DEBT FINANCING
Heavy reliance on debt is a dangerous thing for your startup, because if you lose money, all the investment in the form of debt, may it be from your family or your best friend, all would go in vain.
LACK OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
No matter how skilled you are, if there is no strategic planning and lack of management, your business might eat you alive. You need to be qualified to run your business in one way or the other. We don’t suggest you to get a Business Degree at this point but manage your team in a way that there are people who know where things are going.
NO BUSINESS PLAN
It’s a good thing if you are an optimist but, bear in mind that hope is definitely not a good strategy. From the concept, to the planning, and then execution, you need a business plan. You won’t ever touch the moon if you don’t even know what you need to do in order to reach for it. No matter how good your concept is, if you fail to chalk out a plan, someone, somewhere in the world might just use your plan and earn millions because of it.
Regardless of the reasons your startup failed, you need to look at the brighter side of the picture and know that failure is an inevitable part of success. You might fail once, twice, or even a hundred times but think of the experiences you gained because of it. I f you had not gone through all those processes, you would not have been what you are today. So, simply get up and do it again.
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