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Thomas Edison claimed to have failed in his attempt to invent the light bulb, but found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.
In this regard, Edison’s greatest achievement was persistence rather than innovation, a distinction that should be instructive to business leaders and entrepreneurs in their pursuit of success.
Spreading knowledge.
While no one can fail, failure itself is a critical step in the learning and creative process, says Elise Newman, associate dean of research in Clemson University’s College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities.
“Failure itself helps us understand the limits of what we know,” says Newman. “If it teaches something, it will always be useful.”
But in the business world there is a tendency to try to control all variables to minimize the risk of failure and protect the bottom line. While understandable, this can translate into greater risk aversion and innovation, according to Alex Estevez, a venture partner with Accel and chair of the 2022 Greenville Next Venture Summit.
“Innovation requires experimentation And Wrong,” says Estevez. “If we are to celebrate creativity, we must understand and accept the necessary ‘mistakes’ or failures.
He cites Stewart Butterfield’s seed investment in Accel and the eventual project Slack as an example of a ubiquitous communication platform widely adopted by the business world.
The first project was a video game that ultimately failed, but instead of abandoning Butterfield, they realized that the internal communications platform they created while working on the game was truly innovative.
Estevez says Axel’s gamble on Butterfield paid off as a unique entrepreneur, saying Slack was eventually sold for $28 billion.
“It doesn’t always work out that way, but this failure is a good example of not being a failure,” says Estevez.
Learning from failure
For entrepreneurs and startups, the risk of failure is real. It can happen for any number of reasons, but careful planning and a willingness to learn from such failures can lead to success.
As Marjorie Luke with Piedmont SCORE says, careful planning is a critical first step in any new business venture. SCORE is one of the oldest and largest mentoring organizations for entrepreneurs in the country and provides many resources for people starting their own businesses.
“Failure capacity should be part of everyone’s initial business plan,” says Luke. “[Failure] It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.
It’s not failure that leads to ultimate success, but the willingness to learn from it and apply those lessons to a new approach.
That’s a critical distinction, says John Moore, principal consultant at Greenville-based Momentum Strategies. Moore, who frequently advises startups and their founders, refers to another Edison quote about persistence: “Our greatest weakness is despair.” The surest way to success is to try just once.
“From a business perspective, especially in one’s life cycle, failure doesn’t have to be fatal,” says Moore.
While Moore doesn’t advocate celebrating failure, he says entrepreneurs should be encouraged when they try to start new ventures even if they fail.
He added that it is important to create a support network for the start-up community, one that admits failure and is willing to extend the necessary help for an entrepreneur to “get back on the other horse”.
“That’s an important point — to keep that cycle going,” Moore said. “The result comes from the effort.”
Examples of failure that paves the way for success
- Walt Disney’s first venture into animation, Laugh-O-Gram Films, started with $15,000 but ultimately failed when a major distributor closed its doors.
- Milton Hershey saw three failed attempts before founding the company that became the candy colossus.
- Twitter founder Evan Williams saw the failure of a podcasting platform called Odeo that launched at the same time as Apple’s iTunes. He pulled the plug on Odeo and started developing what became a side project.
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