Since I started this platform, many of you have written to ask what you should do when the business is failing or fails completely. Given that about 70% of all start-up ventures fail within the first year, the chances are high that I’m speaking to a lot of you who have faced failure yourselves, or know someone else who has faced failure.
You have heard me say often that “a business idea is only as good as your first contact with paying customers”. To you, it is a fantastic idea, and you have poured your heart, soul, and probably your savings and borrowings into it. But...
No one is buying, and things are slow. You are sinking into ever more debt and trouble with it. Even when someone else is making a success of it, it does not mean you, too, can or should succeed.
I have been in this place many, many times, and so has Aliko Dangote, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs… every successful entrepreneur knows it!
It is the #Process by which we evaluate a venture’s future: Bringing in fresh eyes that are not emotionally engaged with it. This can be hard, and very painful.
If you have gone through Business Wars and other podcasts including those on Sasai Podcast, you will learn ways other entrepreneurs have dealt with it, and then gone on to use the learning to build ever more successful businesses.
Shutting down something that is not working is never easy; it takes a lot of courage. Yes, you are going to feel humiliated and a failure, but you will have to do it.
Let’s be mature about these things: "Hard things are hard".
I’m not here to speak to you about the glory of success and its fruits. If that was my interest I would use Twitter and Instagram and tell you what I had for breakfast! I’m also not here to tell you it is going to be easy.
Entrepreneurship is very hard. And the chances that you will hit some speed bumps and suffer a real smash up are high. But “chill” if you can. It’s not the end of the world, okay? It has happened to all great entrepreneurs, even if you don’t see it in their life today.
It also happens every single day in some of the biggest, most robust companies in the world, and not just in the past few years with the pandemic. The #Numbers say they must downsize, shut down factories, stop poor-performing product lines and services, or shut down companies altogether. It's very painful for all involved.
So, say it's you who have hit that speed bump recently. You feel down and low. It may feel like it, but it is not the end of the world. It will come to pass. Never allow yourself to see it any other way. It might mean you will have to find a job for a while, but don’t beat up on yourself, or go into low self-esteem.
Welcome to entrepreneurship! It will always be part of the game. That is why “risk” and “entrepreneurship” are words that you always find together.
Be like a professional football player after a loss: Those guys lose a World Cup for which they worked and dreamed about for at least four years... and probably their whole career before that! Now they are out. Within a few weeks, they are back at their clubs as though nothing happened. But they will always tell you, they learnt a lot.
If you aren't already, you are about to become a great entrepreneur... Yes, you! Every dream is still alive. Go back and play with all you had and more! Use what you learnt and keep an eye out for the first green shoots of the root from the old vine.
It always comes, and that is the faith of the entrepreneur!
"It's not how we make mistakes but how we correct them, that defines us".
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