Top 4 treats of failing business models

Many entrepreneurs and businessmen, especially those tech-savvy (co-) founders whose rise is almost as accidental as that of Facebook, do not know or give enough consideration to business model of their businesses. Small businesses and startups are especially prone to this problem, as they focus on (new) product releases and never pause to assess and review their businesses or just vow for a “marketplace” business model. The results? Many startups created but most of them fail without achieving any traction nor causing any significant impact.

What is needed is a paradigm shift. Every business venture/initiative needs to have a business model in a short- or long-term. The model expands on how the parts of the business work together to create profit and (eventually/ideally) growth. While the proven razor-and-blades model has been working and stil lworks for many a business, many startups and small businesses grow exponentially by embracing innovative business models for such wide and overcrowded markets as online gaming or discount markets.

What is needed is creation of a business model around a thick value. A flawed/misconceived business model might have a number of shortcomings, including:

un-Sustainable – if the business is built on momentary or not well-thought-out concept/trend, it cannot be sustained for long, only working (and perhaps providing profits in a short time span).
un-Scalable – This is usually the result of business short-sight when first launching the business. User-base, marketing or demand growth can all lead to decreasing efficiencies/quality of the product. ‘How long could my business continue to operate successfully without me?’ If the answer is not long then it is to dependent on you. The result is your business can not be scaled up beyond your own personal efforts.
un-Profitable – Companies might grow but not become profitable, the eventual side-effect of any sustainable and successful business. There is a deep need of understand the concept of a profit model.
un-Valuable – Is the business creating a real, thick value? Is it addressing an (un-addressed) need in a market? Is it addressing an (addressed) need in a more innovative, cheaper and sustainable manner? If NO for any of the two, than perhaps it is time to re-invent your business.

Stop. RE-view, RE-think and RE-assess your business. Do you want to be in it? If yes, can you pinpoint to a value that it creates and the business model that it works?

Devver and other thoughts on failures

Till today, I somehow failed to know about the existence of Failure Magazine. Although most of articles I checked are quite long (like this article about “No Logo” of Naomi Klein that goes for 7 pages) there is much to read and learn about.

What I meant to write about was Devver, a maker of cloud-based tools for making Ruby developers more efficient (code testing, QC).

As one of co-founders, Ben Brinckerhoff, points out:

Most of the mistakes we made developing our test accelerator and, later, Caliper boiled down to one thing: we should have focused more on customer development and finding a minimum viable product (MVP).

They assumed they already got their MVP and focused on further developing their products at the expense of loosing touch with existing/potential customer base. He admits that:

Our mistake at that point was to go “heads down” and focus on building the accelerator while minimizing our contact with users and customers (after all, we knew how great it was and time spent talking to customers was time we could be hacking!).

As Devver focused and developed its accelerator product, it became increasingly sophisticated, eventually “resulting” in setup/configuration problems – the main put-off for many users. When this hurdle was found, they came up with a solution, but again failed to keep in touch with users, instead churning out new features.

Result? Two years and $500K later, the three tech-savvy founders had to fold.

As the saying goes, “don’t fall in love with your product; let your customers do so.“

As an article in Business Know-How explains, “key factors that — if not avoided — will be certain to weigh down a business and possibly sink it forevermore”:

You start your business for the wrong reasons (making money is the first one on this list)
Poor management (sometimes management is too techy – case with Devver – or too business)
Insufficient capital (lean startups must be able to avoid this trap)
Location, Location, Location (one of factors that contributed to a temporary suspension/failure of my own startup Elegua)
Lack of planning (this depends on a type of business, but many businesses change/evolve so much from their original vision/plan that they become unrecognizable)
Overexpansion (riding on top of seed/series A capital, hiring frenzy)
No Website (this is debatable – my second startup, GPDoors, has no website yet – I do get leads via WoM)

And even if you fail (as I did and surely will do in the future), remember that:

Failure is necessary
Failure reinforces the need for risk
Success can breed complacency
Failure means you’re not alone
Failure doesn’t necessarily mean something went wrong
Failure can emphasize process, not merely people
Failure broadens your thinking

How NOT to lay off employees

Let’s make a little scenario, where you undergo the following experience.

You work for a mid-size Internet company. One day, you receive an email from the CEO to all employees announcing there are upcoming layoffs and restructuring. The email’s subject reads, “Important Updates – Please READ.” Why not mentioning directly about layoffs in the subject – the main subject of the email? In brief, the email (see the image below – I outlined the most “interesting” passages) states that few people will be laid off and the decision to lay certain people off is not based on their performance. It then uses terms such as “aligning business lines” and “reducing costs” as justifications for a layoff and stops short of being outright ridiculous.

It is about 2pm. In about 30 minutes, you are cartered to the HR manager’s office, where you find quite a few of your colleagues crammed into a tiny space, all of you standing and facing the HR manager – she is seated. You are told that you are to leave the company. No further elaboration – it is all in the email, you are told. It all goes for few minutes only and you are then dismissed. You inquire about how you will handover your tasks and to whom – you assume before the end of the month. You are however told that indeed that day is to be your last day – you have 3 hours to handover all of your tasks.

You then return to your office. It is about 2:35pm. You open your Outlook and try to check your email. Your Outlook responds with “authorization failure.” You later discover that, during the time (5 mins) you were in the HR office, your email account has been blocked.

Below is the list of points of how the scenario unraveled, a case study of how NOT to lay off employees.

sending an email about upcoming layoffs, containing vague terms and no solid reasoning;
not giving an advance warning to affected employees (making the day of email announcement also the last day for affected employees);
ignoring employee-employer relationship specifics as written in contracts signed between employees and the employer (and the labor law – subject to sue the company);
inconsistently selecting employees to lay off (in some cases, not even consulting an employee’s immediate supervisor/manager);
making the employee layoff in an impersonal way (by bringing them all together to a room and the HR manager informing them that they are to go);
blocking access to email account/internet (again without any prior warning) for affected employees shortly after they were told to leave;
not offering to affected employees reasons/explanations leading to their layoff;
not letting affected employees to organize a handover of their work ;
claiming “there is nothing personal – it is only business” but contradicting it by saying that decision to lay off is not based on performance, which provides a direct or indirect measure of contribution to the business/output of the employee.

P.S. This happened in a company I worked for.

I was dully told that indeed today was to be our last day – in mere 2.5 hours (working day finishes at 5pm and we were at HR office at 2:30pm).

Suspending operations of the first coworking community in MENA

You might remember from my earlier post that I started the first coworking community space in Egypt and the MENA region (with exception of Israel), Elegua, back in August 2009.

Ever since, we have been struggling to break-even, all the more given the unfamiliarity of the market with the concept and with many semi-alternatives such as Starbucks-style coffee shops with moderate Internet connections/quality.

Initially, our agreement was – I was doing it with an Egyptian friend of mine and a partner – that I will take care of the business side and he will be in charge of the logistical and day-to-day management of the company. It took few weeks for me to realize that, however professional and hard-working my friend was, he was not committing the time or brain work required to the company, especially considering the initial stage of our startup and the fact that we did not seek any venture capital, but decided to boostrap. We were both employed full time and Elegua was to be our side project, which we wanted to grow.

Our first stumbling block was to find a comfortable and affordable space in the central Cairo, or close to where many foreigners were living – our target were mostly young, class A/B foreigners, students, young entrepreneurs, techies, geeks. Anyone with a laptop, a need for high-speed Internet connection, comfortable and relaxing working environment and willingness to network with like-minded individuals was qualified. All the more so as there was no real competition, besides the coffee shops with slow and unreliable Internet connections and few Internet cafes (in downtown Cairo there are quite few of them but they all look ramshackle and none allows flexibility of using your own laptop/WiFi).

We did not conduct a proper market research. Instead, we relied on my gut feeling and my partner’s knowledge of Egyptian market and our collective perception that a co-working space would not even need to be sold out. It would be so intuitively appealing that everyone would go for it.

What were the results 7 months later?

Modest revenues (not close to break-even). Many people loved the idea, but not many were ready to brave the Cairo traffic in order to reach the place.We kept on hiring and firing few employees as none were qualified enough- due to lack of time we opted for friends and connections of friends: high turnover. Elegua fan page on Facebook has 200+ fans which failed to convert.

In brief, a failure, but a failure with lots of valuable lessons for me, and surely for my partner.

The main factors in our failure were (my view):

Choice of partner/co-founder (my partner was more ready to commit in words/ideas but not in actions as it became eventually clear)
Time/effort commitment (both I and my partner treated Elegua as a side project and did not allocate enough time and effort for its growth)
The place (the choice of the place was crucial for such a business – though it was central but still not enough to attract the potentially interested)
Missing market data (we did not realize at the time how popular, reliable and affordable the Internet USB sticks became – many preferred to sit at any chosen place and plug-in a USB stick rather then to displace themselves to a coworking space)

Maybe we were to much in a hurry and could have been a bit more patient and perseverant. But maybe not. The time will show. In any case, I felt this was the right time for such a decision and as much as it was my original idea and closing it, even temporarily is not a joyous occasion, we decided to take this route.

I am moving on with my other project – more about that later – and will perhaps eventually reopen Elegua but with different offerings, another partner – in Egypt any company has to be 51% owned by an Egyptian, and I am not Egyptian – and in a different part of the city!

The Seven Deadly Sins of Leadership

Here is a piece about leadership “sins” as categorized by management/leadership guru Drucker.

The Sin of Pride

The Sin of Pride is almost always considered the most serious of the Seven Deadly Sins. Yet it seems so innocuous. My wife calls it “being full of oneself.” I believe feeling proud of what a leader has accomplished or is accomplishing is perfectly acceptable. The problem comes when one feels this pride to the extent that the leader believes himself so special that ordinary rules no longer apply to him. That’s where many leaders go awry.

The Sin of Lust

I once heard a retired leader of a large organization of almost a million members speak about his challenges of leading this organization. “One of the biggest problems,” he said, “was newly promoted senior executives. I may be exaggerating a little,” he continued. “But it seemed almost that as soon as we promoted a man to be a senior executive, he suddenly decided that he was God’s gift to women.”

This individual spoke at a time when almost all senior executives had been male. However, I do not think that one would find much difference with female executives. There is unfortunately a feeling among some leaders that they have “arrived” and are “entitled” to additional sexual gratification as some sort of fringe leadership benefit. In one online survey done by the White Stone Journal, The Deadly Sin of Lust was the most frequent of the Seven Deadly Sins self-reported as “my biggest failing.” So this sin is hardly uncommon. However, it can have very unfortunate consequences. In any workplace it creates jealousies, feelings of favoritism, a lack of trust, damages people and relationships and more.

The Sin of Greed

The Sin of Greed is a sin of excess. It frequently starts with power. Leaders have power, and unfortunately having power has a tendency to lead to corruption if the leader isn’t careful. This may start with the acceptance of small favors and grow into vacations, loans and worse. How do these things happen? A leader sees others with more than he has. Questions may be raised in the leader’s mind as to why others have so much more, yet (in the leader’s mind) are far less deserving. Maybe a small bribe is accepted. It may not even be seen as a bribe, just a favor between friends. If the leader allows himself to be seduced in this way, greed can take over. Unlike the movie, greed is never “good,” even as a motivator, and though Drucker analyzed and approved many motivations, greed was not one.

The Sin of Sloth

The Sin of Sloth has to do with an unwillingness to act. Sometimes this is due to laziness. More often it is an unwillingness to take on work that the leader considers is beneath him. I have many times seen leaders watching critical work that must be completed and for which they were also qualified to do. Yet they stood around “supervising” when they could have given real help to their subordinates and to the mission that they were responsible for accomplishing. In too many cases, good men and women fail because their leader failed to help or take action in other ways. Make no mistake about it, The Sin of Sloth leads to disaster. Leaders must be proactive and they must take action.

The Sin of Wrath

This sin has to do with uncontrolled anger. There is a time for anger in leadership when it serves a definite and useful purpose. As Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson taught us, you can take one minute to make a correction and include the words “I’m angry” and then tell the recipient why. Moreover, anger does have a useful function in that it can mobilize psychological and physical resources to do something about a problem.

However, leaders need to avoid repeated and uncontrolled anger because it can have negative impacts on their leadership. It can destroy morale, does not guarantee a lasting effect in correcting problems, and in effect requires surrendering anger as a tool for the times when expressing it is really useful and appropriate. Moreover when in an angry state, anger causes the leader a loss of self-monitoring capacity and the ability to observe objectively.

Drucker taught leaders to analyze their environment and to determine what actions that have already occurred mean for the future before taking action. Using anger as a single response to all leadership challenges prevents us from doing this analysis. It prevents the leader from making good decisions and may prevent the leader from taking the correct action appropriate to the situation. Actions taken during uncontrolled action are frequently in error and require additional work to undue the consequences of these mistakes later.

The Sin of Envy

With the Sin of Envy, the leader is envious of what is enjoyed by someone else. This may or may not be incorporated with greed. The sin usually leads the leader to make decisions and to take actions that will be to the disadvantage to the object of his envy. So a leader who falls victim to this sin may deny an earned promotion to a qualified subordinate, attempt to destroy another’s reputation or in other ways attempt to make himself feel better by lowering the situation of another. This is obviously harmful to this other individual, hurts the organization and is probably harmful to the leader who perpetrates these actions.

The Sin of Gluttony

Most think of food or drink with this sin, but for the leader it has a far more ominous connotation. The Sin of Gluttony was the one that most frustrated Drucker. Expensive food or drink is scarce. Therefore excessive consumption can be seen as a sign of status. But gluttony need not apply only to food.

Drucker knew how hard managers had to work to do their jobs as they needed to be done, and he had defended high salaries for top managers early in his career. However skyrocketing executive salaries caused him to drastically alter his opinion. Drucker said and wrote that executive salaries at the top had become clearly excessive and that the ratios of the compensation of American top managers to the lowest paid workers were the highest in the world. Moreover, this difference wasn’t slight, but differed by magnitudes. He said this was morally wrong. The ratio of average CEO compensation in the United States to average pay of a non-management employee in the United States hit a high in 2001 of 525 to 1. Drucker recommended a ratio of no more than 20 to 1.

The Sin of Gluttony was to be avoided for good leadership. Interestingly, Drucker drew a parallel of high executive salaries with the demands of unions for more and more benefits without an increase in productivity. He said we would pay a terrible price for these examples of gluttony and that “it is never pleasant to watch hogs gorge.” As I write these words, we are paying this price.

There are things that a leader must do, and things he must not. The Seven Deadly Sins are those that Drucker maintained that leaders must not do.

Common and important social media fail techniques

The current and foreseeable “big” thing, as seen from an Internet user’s perspective, is the social media. As for anything considered or perceived as fashionable, social media has its own caveats. Testimony to that are (some of the) social media approaches illustrated below (see the full article here), which guarantee an eventual failure of any sustained endeavor, be it in personal or professional life and career.

Doing nothing ’cause you’re scared of what people will say. People are going to talk, with or without you. Wired)

Pretending to be somebody else. When is it ok to lie to a customer? (mumbrella)

Selling your product all day, everyday. Social Media is about capturing interest, not just sales. (The Next Web)

Failure to respond when asked a reasonable question. It’s a crime to have a presence yet ignore customers. My favourate is @VlineInform

Plagiarising bloggers content. Most bloggers are overtly happy with a mere hat tip. (Journalism.co.uk)

Not personalising your profile. People want to know who you are, what you’re about. (Webinknow)

Blocking access to Social Media in your workplace. For so many reasons Social Media can be an allie or enemy. (Chris Brogan)

Thinking people care about your product. Your product, probably boring. Find an interesting angle. (Emergence Marketing)

Calling your product green when your website isn’t. Many make big claims, few think about their power sucking web presence.

Not understanding how Social Media fits into your marketing mix. Hailed the death of print media… it’s not, it’s a communication tool. (The Oyster Project)

Relying too much on online research. There’s a wealth of info online, it may not all be valid. (Pigs Don’t Fly)

Failing to listen. Social isn’t always about talking, it’s just as much about listening. (Just Another PR)

Not recognizing that you are shooting at the moon…You’re going to fail, lots. Social requires commitment.

Thinking you can’t contribute to a community, just sponsor it. Enthusiasts are already coming together? Why not ask how you can get involved?

Thinking ‘news’ is the only thing that can be talked about online. There’s a plethora of opportunity on the social web. (Search Engine Land)

Saying something, just for the sake of it. There’s no rules to success, just be honest and interesting. (Online Marketing Banter)

Relying on strategic thinking alone. Social media is the worlds largest experiment – recognise you may need to fail to learn.

Using the exact same strategy and content across multiple networks. Love it, you update Facebook & Twitter with every new presser. (Search Engine Guide)

Not measuring / monitoring your activity. Yes it’s possible! (I.e. – Radian6, Buzz Metrics, Dialogix)

Trying to get as many followers as possible. Large unresponsive list = bad, smaller profitable base = good. (digitalOZ)

You treat Social Media as another advertising medium. It’s different. (MediaPost)

The list above is what I consider the most relevant and important failure-leading approaches espoused frequently by both individuals and businesses while using social media.

Example: have your idea take off while saving money and getting results

You have an idea – everyone has an idea – but so what? Just because you have what you consider a bright, innovative idea, doesn’t make it automatically into a ready-made product, service or any other added value to what already exists. To make sure your idea is worthy, firstly, bounce it off of as many different people – anyone who might give you a valuable input or opinion whether from within or without a relevant domain or field for you – and open your mind to critique (adding new value to your idea) as much as possible.

Once you start considering (a hitherto unconsidered) factors stemming from breaking initial presuppositions, stereotypes, narcissistic flavors and just plain and simple information about market, competition, trends that somehow slipped through your fingers, you will start clearly seeing, visualizing what you are after.

Next, execution.

But, wait a minute. Even in execution there are ways and ways. The latter is what you must consider if you financial situation is still (or will shortly become) somewhat shaky.

In this era of mushrooming Internet technologies – especially web 2.0-related/devised – doing business online or putting an online business presence is becoming easier by day. Traditional means of creating, building and sustaining a business are either becoming obsolete or reinventing themselves. There luminaries like Umair Haque who has awesomely created Awesomeness Manifesto and much more.

And of course, with the current economic situation, we are all looking how to do it a 21st-century-style-innovative and to save money while doing it.

Let’s take an illustrative example. In 2004, Heather Allard “started 2 Virtues Inc. to bring my inventions, Swaddleaze and Blankeaze to market.”

She spent in excess of $54K (even without product manufacturing).

If I started 2 Virtues now in 2009, I’d do things so differently. I could start a business for under $1000 by doing these 5 things:

Skip the Website

Hire a Freelancer

DIY

Become a Social Butterfly

Free Stuff

If you read carefully the entire article (containing many nice tips, free tools and additional links) you will see how Heather – if she started in 2009 with all her current knowledge and experience – would have been able to economize on practically every aspect of her business initiative, thanks mostly to the Internet and free online tools, methodologies and techniques.

Instead of $54K, you can spend <$1K. What do you think about that?

3 startups +1 and 3 lessons +1

The Entrepreneur magazine has asked three successful entrepreneurs to describe a scenario of doing things all over again if they had a chance. Below is their response.

Entrepreneur

Sunny Bonnell, 33, co-founder of Motto Agency, a brand and design firm in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Founded in 2003, the company’s year-end sales are projected to reach about $1 million.

Lesson Learned

“As a woman business owner, I would have reached out to organizations like Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence a lot sooner than I did. They have helped me build our networks on a national level (i.e., establish partnerships with FedEx, OPEN from American Express and Dell) and given us access to mentorship, marketing opportunities and business resources.”

Entrepreneur

Anthony Mongeluzo, 28, founder of The Pro Computer Service LLC, an IT services company in Medford, N.J. He founded the company in 2002 and now has annual revenue in excess of $2 million.

Lesson Learned

“I would have treated my company like a real business and not looked upon it as a stepchild. I would have given it the same full effort every day and not wasted my energy from 9 to 5 with my employer grasping for a moment or two to sneak in a quick call to one of my clients.”

Entrepreneur

Kris Putnam-Walkerly, 40, founder of Putnam Community Investment Consulting Inc., a Cleveland-based philanthropy consulting firm for foundations and nonprofits. She founded the company in 1999 and projects 2009 revenue to approach $1 million.

Lesson Learned

“I should have conducted more regular financial analysis of the business early on to help me understand which types of services and clients were most profitable and to allow me to make more informed decisions as I grew.”

Personally, I am also still struggling with my own startup, Elegua, to have it gain sufficient traction, especially considering that I and my partner are on a bootstrapping mode till now. And we both fall into the “lesson learned” of the second entrepreneur, Anthony Mongeluzo, above. My previous initiative, OpenCoffee Club Cairo, is also sort of put on hold, as the inaugural meetup didn’t attract a threshold number of local entrepreneurs, startup enthusiasts, VCs, techies and individuals interested. This reminds me as well to give it another push, as I also got a recent feedback to renew my effort. Hence:

Lesson Learned

Persevere, persevere, persevere. Perseverance, especially in cultures/societies with corresponding 0-market knowledge of or unadapted mentality to the ideas of the business initiative in question, it is vital to persevere and however steep a climb it might seem, there is always a societal learning curve, which, once the tipping point is achieved, will become self-sustainable.

Given its complete novelty and unawareness in the MENA region and in Egypt, I think I will give it another try.

What are your experiences and lessons learned?

P.S. I know it has been a long time since my last post. My own side projects and my work prevented my “blogging creative juices” from running. I will try to be more systematic henceforth.

Why Smart People, Executives and Companies Do Dumb Things

I am a big fan of Guy Kawasaki (and his blog), having recently purchased and consumed his last book “Reality Check.” One of the chapters of the book, and the corresponding post on his blog, he refers to a book called “Why Smart People Do Dumb Things” pointing out four reasons why smart, intelligent, powerful, and rich people end up in disastrous situations.

Hubris. Pride to the point that you no longer feel shame, no longer believe that you are subject to public opinion, and no longer need to fear “the gods.” Examples: Gary Hart’s involvement with Donna Rice that ended his run for the presidency and the Dennis Kozlowski’s (Tyco) $2 million toga party.

Arrogance. From the Latin word arrogare: “to claim for oneself.” Arrogant people believe they have claim to anything and everything they want–they are “entitled” to it. King David, for example, felt entitled to the wife (Bathsheba) of one of his soldiers. Modern day King Davids feel entitled to corporate jets and an entourage to tell them that their keynote speech rocked.

Narcissism. Self absorption to the point that you are blind to reality. The world only exists to provide you gratification. Examples: Richard Nixon and Watergate; the Clintons and Whitewater—really just about every politician and CEO who falls from grace.

Unconscious need to fail. If you think failing is hard, try winning. The questions that go through people’s minds when they they are on the doorstep of success are: Do I really deserve to win? Do I want the pressure of constantly having to win in the future? Can I really handle success? Perhaps this explains why professional athletes still take performance enchancement drugs even after watching their colleagues get busted.

The authors of the book prescribe a six-dimensional set of remedies:

Accept yourself
Accept others
Keep your sense of humor
Accept simple pleasures
Enjoy the present
Welcome work

The same book goes on mentioning why smart companies do dumb things. Here the list is more sophisticated.

Consensus
Conviction
CEOs
Experts
Good news
Lofty ends

Guy adds another three additional factors that make smart companies do dumb things.

Budgets
Greed
Arrogance

From my limited experience, I would also add (to make few implications more explicit):

Lose of focus/vision
Lose of touch with reality
Willingness, inability and perseverence to overstretch

Finally, an excellent book (that took six years to complete) by Syney Finkelsteen, “Why Smart Executives Fail,” draws on an unprecedented research of the corporate history and showcases some of most flagrant examples of brilliant and smart executives who caused their companies to fail. He lists seven habits of spectacularly unsuccessful executives

They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environments.
They identify so completely with the company that there is no boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interest.
They think they have all the answers.
They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who is not 100 percent behind them.
They are consummate company spokespersons obsessed with the company image.
They underestimate major obstacles.
They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past.

Seven Virtues of Failure

Another excellent article (below) about virtues of business/entrepreneurial failure.

I believe that failing daily does two things, it teaches me what I need to do better; and it reminds me of what failure feels like. Both are awesome outcomes.

Temperance (Gluttony)

“The downside to this level of ambition is that it’s not complicated to overload yourself. I’ve learned that ambition minus realism often equals failure.”

The truth is that ambition always has a lack of realism. Its impossible to believe you will one day be the best without believing first that you are capable of being the best. You have to be unrealistic in your expectations to truly become successful. Its the lack of realism that creates the potential for failure.

The best failures are measured and tempered with self control. Understand the downside of any potential failure. Keep the failure contained through careful understanding.

Charity (Greed)

“Sacrificing your core business by spending too much time on non-core ideas…It’s important to realize that not all ideas are worth pursuing”

Yet many people eventually fail through anlysis paralysis. I have a standard equation, out of 10 ideas, 8 suck. 1 is decent, and one is fantastic. To understand success through failure, one must be willing to become creative and think uniquely about the problem. By ideating, over time, several solutions are born. Being generous with yourself and allowing the ideation to occur, develops the potential for mass, measured failure.

And, failure always leads to success.

Diligence (Sloth)

“Where it can become mostly problematic is when it keeps you from seeing a project through to the end.”

I get what Jeffrey is saying here. Starting projects is easy. The middle is not that hard, but to finish? Often its a Herculean effort. Why? Because the completion of a project allows you to determine if it was a success or failure. The completion of a project allows OTHERS to say if its a success or failure.

Its often easier to live in the grey area of undone, than it is to live in the world of definition.

With failures its the same way. My favorite saying is “failure is not what you do, but what you do after.”

Persevere. Fail a lot. Fail early. But be amazing once the failures teach you how to succeed.

Chastity (Lust)

“Getting lured away from what you need to do by what you want to do.”

Lust is an interesting sin. By definition, Lust involves a lack of thought with a focus on immediate gratification. So how does the virtue, Chasity or Purity work with failure? Failure is pure. There is nothing about failure that can be soiled. Each failure creates the same emotions, usually regret and disappointment, and each failure creates the same reality. Yet, each failure, when learning occurs, also creates the very real case of being one step closer to success.

It is impossible to do nothing but succeed if each failure is coupled with learning. You dont have to lust after success to achieve it.

Humility (Pride)

“Success has this extra-special way of super gluing on the ‘I’m so awesome’ blinders and fooling you into thinking that you’re the smartest person alive.”

The greatest thing about consistent failure, is that it reminds you that you cant solve every problem. That you arent the greatest. That at the end of the day only the outcome matters in the measurement of success, not the process.

Failure teaches us that the real talent is the recovering and learning from failure. Turning that failure (perhaps matching it to a previous failure) into a road map for success is what separates the great from the good.

Allow the emotion of humility to provide you the open-mindedness to review your failures in such a way as to improve incrementally and move towards success.

Patience (Wrath)

“Wrath is energy, and like all energy it can be used to good or evil. I like to think about the ratio of windshield to rear-view mirror and use that idea to focus my energy on what’s next.”

If wrath is energy, then patience is focused energy. Its hard to fail, fail and then fail again. You want to push, you want to accelerate the process. You move into a world of immediate gratification and would rather skip to the success part of the adventure.

Patience is not just a function of waiting, or sitting idly by. Patience is actually a function of perseverance.

If you read Jeffrey’s post, and remove the “Seven Sins” metaphor, every point he makes actually is interwoven. Words like energy, focus, hard work are repeated themes.

Failure becomes a part of the process, removing the need for a perceived failure end point.

Satisfaction/Kindness (Envy)

“Just stay true to your original plans; see them through; and understand that more-often-than-not, these new and exciting concepts are rarely vetted for use beyond their original purpose, thus having the extreme ability to only add layers of complexity to what you already do.”

Envy kills success. Focusing on competitors is a horrible action that causes most companies to lose focus. If you are doing what you need to do, focusing and understanding the market, your competitors dont matter.

Envy creates failure. Simple enough.

But, the key to all of this, is if you understand the importance of failure to the creation of success; you will also experience true satisfaction.

You have succeeded and failed completely.

And, becoming a success at the end of the day is the greatest satisfaction.