Roman Semiokhin is a thought leader with a wealth of experience of the tech and gaming industries, recognising all too well what it takes to build and scale a successful business. This article will look at entrepreneurship and how falling foul of even major mistakes need not culminate in an entrepreneur’s downfall – and how learning to not just overcome failure but actively embrace it is a critical step in the entrepreneurial journey.
Starting a business is no small undertaking, requiring the founder to conduct scrupulous research, raising capital and arming themselves with the right knowledge and resources. With 50% of small businesses failing in the first four years, most entrepreneurs will admit that business success is as much about good fortune as it is about skill. Even the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have made some colossal mistakes at some point or other in their entrepreneurial journey. Rather than being paralysed into inactivity for fear of taking a wrong turn, successful entrepreneurs rise above failure, turning problems into possibilities.
Failure is a very effective teacher
Failure is a very effective teacher, helping founders to learn valuable lessons for the future. For example, if a marketing campaign falls flat this could result in a significant financial setback for a company. However, the team will know they need to take things in a different direction next time, helping the business to avoid more costly errors further down the road when the stakes are likely to be much higher.(2)
Failure Recognizes Limitations
Failure shows founders that something is missing from their business or that something needs to be corrected for the venture to succeed. Through failure they learn more about themselves, as well as uncovering gaps in their systems, strategies, business and teams. Once the founder learns to recognise these weaknesses or limitations they can do something about it, making the necessary changes.
Failure forces businesses to pause and take stock
Failure forces businesses to pause and take stock, prompting leadership to analyse operations and consider whether they should pivot, continue on their chosen course or give up. Without pausing to reflect periodically and looking at the business objectively, founders may end up wasting time, energy and resources chasing the wrong goals while missing valuable opportunities right under their nose.
Ambareen Musa is the CEO of Souqalmal. As she pointed out in a World Economic Forum article, failure comes regularly in business. A founder could hire the wrong person or overlook macro factors impacting their business. They could be blinded by extreme growth through fundraising stages and ultimately lose touch with their business. Ambareen Musa cites her biggest failure as hiring too fast, with her drive and ambition leading to her failing to select candidates for the business carefully enough. Musa found she needed people so that the business could grow. However, as she came to realise, hiring the wrong candidate is a big mistake. Instead, she recommends that businesses should try to be sustainable with their growth – recognising that by hiring too fast her company ended up overspending, with messy procedures and no sustainable work culture.
Every entrepreneur wants to win every time, but in reality, nobody does. No athlete, competitor or team is victorious on every outing, and the same is true in business. Sooner or later, every entrepreneur will fail. However, failure is inherent to taking chances, even calculated risks, and entrepreneurship is a vocation that inherently involves taking risks.
Before founding their company, entrepreneurs need to accept one universal truth: failure is inevitable. No market is 100% safe, and no business owner can get it right 100% of the time. Although fear of failure is natural, successful entrepreneurs do not allow that fear to put them off building something amazing. What the founder should really be afraid of is not trying at all.
For more information about this topic, visit Roman Semiokhin’s website: https://romansemiokhin.com
