Reasons for your first failures?

In no particular order:

1. Hubris / overestimating my own abilities
2. Picking wrong business partner (deep down he wanted to be an employee, not a business partner)
3. Spending money I didn't have andscrewing up my cashflow
4. Allowing someone to develop software in a language I couldn't maintain (Coldfusion? WTF was I thinking?)
5. Being too ready to believe others' promises and attach my destiny to them
6. Signing complicated agreements without getting a lawyer to review them, because I trusted the person involved (they were very highly recommended by others I trusted, but turned out to be a tosser)
7. Shiny object syndrome / spreading myself too thinly
8. Launching stuff when the market/technology base wasn't ready for it (I developed some stuff in 2000 that flopped... several companies have successfully launched and scaled the same idea 10 years later)

And many others, I'm sure.
 


CCarter said:
7. Biggest mistake... Spreading myself too thin. If you can't be successful in one thing, then it's impossible to be at 12 things at the same time. If anyone takes anything from this, that's the one thing that caused the most problem.
Click to expand...

THIS.

-What moderate to small amount of success I have seen, I think would be magnified 10X-20X if i would have followed the above sooner. I am now getting to the point where I know that's the name of the game. I can't speak as to how much it holds true further up the ladder, but I assume it will stay a fairly consistent factor. I have so many good fucking ideas though... doesn't matter, execute on the best one.

-Not sticking to niches that I know and have passion for. Helping people is the true name of the game and it's hard to do that without knowledge and passion. Not saying you can't make a killing selling Hello Kitty, but for me.. I want my business to be an extension of myself. I think there's a difference between making tons of money, and doing what you enjoy and making a good living from it. One is rich, one not so much. Everyone is different though, so it's up to you to decide which one you believe is rich. If you can do what you enjoy/love AND make tons of cash, then you made it. For me, I just want freedom while doing what I enjoy.

-Believing in the passive income hype. It's possible, but in the beginning, I think it's best to just forget that term even exists at all. You have to be able to make non passive income far before you can even think about the passive route. It is a good long term goal though.

-Not focusing enough on mastering my mind. It's, by far, the most important aspect. Learning new mental development and discipline techniques in the past couple of months has helped tons. Go in the fucking woods and meditate, or figure out what works best for you, but gain control over your thought processes and you will be able to increase your productivity by leaps and bounds.

-Buying too many damn domains. I bet I have $600 worth of domains sitting in my namecheap account that I have absolutely no plans for. I think of a killer one, check and see it it's available, and bam... I gotta have it. Scarcity is such a strong motivator. Who knows though, it may actually pay off in the long run, and I probably would have just spent that cash on now useless BST services anyway so.. meh, could go wither way.

- I still need to better control my emotions. I remember when I first read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Robert K. said something to the extent of: mastering your emotions is one of the most important things you must do when trying to become a successful entrepreneur. It's true, and it goes along with what I said above about controlling your mind. I've gotten much better at controlling my thoughts and actions, but emotions are such a bitch to conquer. Gotta be consistent.

-STS/dicking off/being a lazy douche
 
Meh.

This thread just made me realize I need to ditch a project I'm working on, bu have been too proud to write it off.

Not looking forward to this.
 
Waiting so long to take action, but I can appreciate that I did. Slowly built business plans and goals and now I'm moving forward fast with an outline of what I need to be doing. I think too many people rush into this and expect overnight success, and I don't think that's possible. Like all great things, it's going to take time..
 
guerilla said:
We're all failing constantly. If you're not failing, you're not trying to do new things. No one has the knowledge to come out and hit a perfect home run every single time. Sometimes, even making contact with the ball can seem more like luck than great design.

My mistakes have almost always come when I didn't do enough research into the people I was working with or the market I was getting in to. I get headstrong and overconfident, and I rush into things without doing the diligence I need to do in order to be successful.

I have gotten better at this, but it's been a source of much misery for me.

Also, not being tight enough with keeping excellent books. I cannot stress enough that if you don't have your books straight, you have no fucking idea what is really going on in your business, and if you think you do, you're a delusional idiot. Outsource it if you don't like doing the books, but don't avoid it altogether. That's dumb and going to bite you in the ass eventually.

Another thing I have done poorly is be passive-aggressive when dealing with uncomfortable business/work relationship issues. If I was as direct with the people I deal with as I am on Wickedfire, those relationships would have been a lot stronger. This is another area I am a lot better at, but not without doing it very poorly for a long time.

I suppose the last thing I failed that which really stands out, is that I spent too many years doing things I was totally unhappy with because I didn't have the courage to take a leap or in my ability to hustle some success. I refuse to do things I don't believe in, work with people I don't trust, or invest in something I don't care about.
Click to expand...
Why the shit is your advice always so perfect? This is literally the perfect answer to the question because these aren't the usual suspects that people attribute failure but they are the root causes to those common failure "reasons".

I would say proper accounting is #1 on my list because it should drive most of your decisions and determine priority of everything.
 
Quitting right before succeeding.

I've probably "lost" tens of thousands of dollars due to quitting projects that were initially failing. My biggest successes have come from projects that were failing at first. Now whenever something appears to be failing I push on an extra 10-20% longer because a majority of those will end up succeeding from my experience. Everyone quits when its too soon. When you're in a race against 10 others and you're the slowest guy at the back, you might still end up winning by default if everyone else quits before the finish line assuming they'll lose too.

I have several websites that literally went from making a few hundred a month to 5-10k a month just 1-3 weeks after I was about to flush the whole project down the shitter.
 
PhillipsPierce said:
Quitting right before succeeding.

I've probably "lost" tens of thousands of dollars due to quitting projects that were initially failing. My biggest successes have come from projects that were failing at first. Now whenever something appears to be failing I push on an extra 10-20% longer because a majority of those will end up succeeding from my experience. Everyone quits when its too soon. When you're in a race against 10 others and you're the slowest guy at the back, you might still end up winning by default if everyone else quits before the finish line assuming they'll lose too.

I have several websites that literally went from making a few hundred a month to 5-10k a month just 1-3 weeks after I was about to flush the whole project down the shitter.
Click to expand...

The difference between a winner and a loser is that a winner keeps trying until he wins.
 
i have much talent but every time i fail because household works disturb my work a lot and some personal problems like health.would like to fix it everything by end of the year
 
Timing, Timing, Timing, Timing.

Not paying myself first.

Taking advice from losers because they were nice.

Wasting months in unproductive distracting group chats.

Rationalizing to myself that they weren't a waste of time.
 
PhillipsPierce said:
Quitting right before succeeding.

I've probably "lost" tens of thousands of dollars due to quitting projects that were initially failing. My biggest successes have come from projects that were failing at first. Now whenever something appears to be failing I push on an extra 10-20% longer because a majority of those will end up succeeding from my experience. Everyone quits when its too soon. When you're in a race against 10 others and you're the slowest guy at the back, you might still end up winning by default if everyone else quits before the finish line assuming they'll lose too.

I have several websites that literally went from making a few hundred a month to 5-10k a month just 1-3 weeks after I was about to flush the whole project down the shitter.
Click to expand...

It's a tough call when to cut your losses. I'm the same way now where I push a bit harder and longer to see if things are going to work out.

QoB8z.jpg


As long as you don't pull a Curt Shilling there is no shame in giving a questionably successful project some overtime.
 
blureach said:
Why the shit is your advice always so perfect? This is literally the perfect answer to the question because these aren't the usual suspects that people attribute failure but they are the root causes to those common failure "reasons".
Click to expand...
One of my obsessions is getting to the root of things.

blureach said:
I would say proper accounting is #1 on my list because it should drive most of your decisions and determine priority of everything.
Click to expand...
And I bet you that is probably the number 1 thing people don't follow through on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom