Dear Entrepreneur,
Do you know that great companies can be born from epic failures? Many great companies have risen from the ashes of their past failures. In fact, failure is sometimes more important than success when starting out a new project. But why is it so? We learn the most from our failures and past mistakes. Learning from our mistakes gives us a better understanding of the position of our company in the market, and a chance to better tailor our product or service to meet the needs of our target customers.
Let’s look at a real-life example: At first, Instagram wasn’t created as a photo editing and sharing app. Its creator, Kevin Systrom, initially launched Instagram as a geolocation app, but guess what happened to it? Nobody used it. Faced with this, Systrom chose to focus on what his target customers wanted instead, which was a photo filtering and sharing app. Instead of quitting at the possibility of failure, Systrom turned things around, and eventually became a billionaire at 32.
You can’t learn everything by reading business books or journals. Personal experience, or in other words, the journey, is everything. Experience is key, and this includes every progress and setbacks experienced along the journey. Many successful entrepreneurs fail on their first attempt, and they used the lessons they learned from that experience to improve and grow even stronger.
With love,
Chidi