Fall 6 Times Get Up 7

When I hear most people talk about entrepreneurship, they often forget to talk about one of the most important aspects, which is failure. Now talking about failure is not like a baseball announcer talking about a no-hitter (you’re not going to jinx yourself). The truth is short-term failure (possibly over and over and over again) is just a part of long-term success. If you can embrace failure as part of the learning process and learn from your mistakes, then you’re ahead of most people.

It’s the rare (and lucky) breed of entrepreneur that can find overwhelming success on their first venture. For the rest of us, it’s a difficult journey paved with peaks and valleys. The question is why does it have to be so difficult? That’s a tough question to answer, but if it were a lot easier, then everybody else would be doing it. The truth is 95% of the population will never take the risks of an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs put everything on the line in the belief that their idea, their dream, can make a huge impact.

Since failure is inevitable, you mind as well learn from it. You need to be honest with yourself (it may help to address the following questions truthfully):

Does my idea fill a need? Are customers willing to pay for it?
Is my product/service superior to my competition (in terms of price, quality, service, experience, etc)?
Have I successfully been able to reach my target customer? If no, how can I better reach them?
Does my business have enough resources/money to have a chance?
Have I assembled the right team/Do I have the right partners?
Have I made any execution mistakes?

How you correct your mistakes and bounce back from failure is the true test of an entrepreneur.