“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Denis Waitley

Failure is a fundamental part of entrepreneurship.

Only half of new businesses survive the first five years. Move forward another five years, and two out of every three businesses have failed.

why-entrepreneurs-failIf you’re persistent, failure becomes just another lesson on the road to success. But in order to learn that lesson, you have to understand why you failed.

Or even better, you can learn why those who went before you failed and avoid their mistakes while minimizing your own.

So why do entrepreneurs fail?

That’s the question we sought to answer by seeking out 18 of the most successful entrepreneurs we know and asking them the following 3 questions:

What was the biggest failure of your career?
Why did you fail?
What did you learn from it?

We got some pretty incredibly responses, and we’re excited to share them with you today.

Let’s get started!
#1: Focusing On Things That Don’t Matter

One of the biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs make is getting distracted by things that don’t really matter, while ignoring the core pieces of building a business.

Business is ultimately just about sourcing something of value and then selling it to customers.

You can grow your Twitter account, take world-class headshots, and print a batch of stylish business cards, but at the end of the day, if you aren’t acquiring customers, you aren’t building a business.
#2: Partnering With People Who Have Similar Skillsets

Virtually every successful business person has a story to tell about how teamwork and networking propelled them forward in their careers. In fact, a survey by Salesforce found that 86% of respondents cited lack of team collaboration as a primary cause of company failures.

But as anyone who ever completed a group project in school can tell you, teamwork is only effective with the right teammates.

When you partner with the right people, you can leverage each other’s skillsets to grow more quickly and create something more valuable than you could ever accomplish alone. When you partner with the wrong people, things are guaranteed to go downhill fast.

When most people think of “bad partners”, they think of lazy, unmotivated, dishonest, or unfocused individuals, and while those qualities certainly make for a doomed partnership, sometimes the real cause of failure is much more subtle.
#3: Neglecting Your Customer Base To Chase A New Segment

Today’s global marketplace moves fast. To lead the way, you have to act quickly, adapt constantly, and persistently maintain customer growth.

Competition and innovation are rarely problems for entrepreneurs, but in the rush to the top, it can be easy to forget the fundamentals

One of the most devastating mistakes any business can make is neglecting its core customer base.
#4: Neglecting The Human Part of Business

There are a lot of intangible reasons to invest in your employees and facilitate a positive work environment. But even if we ignore the intangible and stick to the bottom line, companies with engaged employees see 233% greater customer loyalty and a 26% greater annual increase in revenue.

Simply put, your people are important.
#5: Failing To Anticipate Future Costs

Different business models have different needs. While certain models allow for slow, steady, organic growth, others require that you hit a certain critical threshold within a short timeframe.

Understanding your business model and your critical milestones are crucial to success. Failure to understand where you are, where you’re going, and what you need to get there can stagnate or even cripple your growth.
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Good lesson.

Thanks

Josephjnr:
Good lesson.