Whether edtech or fintech, several start-ups are teetering on the edge. There has been a spate of layoffs, investments are being pared back and ‘cut the burn’ is the mantra of the hour. The start-up ecosystem feels like it’s bearing the burden of failure and it can feel really personal, especially if you are heavily invested in a venture.
Thing is, the old trope of failures being the stepping stone to success feels like a cliché, something we say to ourselves as consolation. In reality, none of us wants to fail or knows how to fail. We avoid failure as if it were an
The steps of success seem sorted: have a great idea, pitch it, work hard, invest, be one-minded, network, raise funding, etc. There are a whole lot of things you can do. Failing at the same venture can be a lot easier, too, if you just went by it step by step.
Should this fail? This seems like an unnecessary question because who chooses to fail? Yet it’s the most necessary decision you will make. Firstly, it pulls you out of victim mode. Your failure was not something done to you by forces beyond your control. It has been a conscious decision you made after taking all available factors into account, keeping the best interests of your company, employees, and self in mind.
Sometimes it’s better to let a career, a relationship, or a venture go. You calculated that throwing more effort, energy, time, resources at the venture in order to save it was self-defeating. Once you’ve decided to pull the plug, the rest of it is just logistics and emotion management.
It’s arriving at this decision that is the hard part. And you can go about it as a victim, feeling defeated and taking it personally, or ride the wave like a conscious decision maker, taking into account economy, business environment, resource crunch and your ability to fulfil your commitments.
When deciding on this, you also get to time your exit, which allows you to save face, resources, and honour what commitments you can, preserving your professional integrity. Having that honest chat with an investor or employer may feel scary, but choosing to walk away after knowing you have exhausted all options you consider feasible is actually a sign of great maturity. Like you have a stop-price for your stocks, having a stop-price for your venture is conserving your resources to fight another day.
Is this difference only in your head, though? How does it matter to anyone looking in from the outside whether you are a victim or a conscious decision maker? To everyone else, you have failed, and that can feel humiliating when you feel judged or mocked. The difference is in your ability to have self-compassion.
Research shows that people who show themselves compassion give themselves leeway when they fail, bouncebackability. They take into account the environmental feedback, forgive themselves, and adapt to incoming information. People who don’t, who blame themselves and the environmental factors, and tend to become defensive and rigid against incoming information.
In short, you are more likely to allow your mistakes to refine your technique when you take ownership of your failures, take in feedback, and give yourself other chances. This works as much for athletes and sportspeople as for entrepreneurs. You also give yourself the ability to judge yourself by your internal process and less by external perception. This allows you to see a possibility for success when others only see an end game.
When you take in information about how and why you failed, you’re able to put it into play to change the game. You learn about timing, about reading the market, about customer and client feedback that you have given too much or not enough weightage to, and you spot the things you missed. That’s all vital information that can alter the next trajectory.
You have to think differently in failure. In loss, breadth of perspective allows you to see the landscape and gauge what strategy is best for you. Too close and you miss the forest for the trees, you miss important clues, you read the market wrong. Step back. Read the landscape. You assumed there was only one way to one goal, and missing that was loss. Are there other ways and other aligned goals that you can meet? Maybe they will get you halfway there? Maybe they will use the resources you have built and pivot you in a different direction. Take that call.
Failing is an art that requires us to depersonalize. When we fail well, strategically, we set ourselves up to win.
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