Principles of Failure

Of course you have a great idea. Sure you are a visionary. No question you have battled hard to be where you are. So was Van Gogh or Nikola Tesla.

Did you get rejected by your Customer? Market or your Investor? Hmmm, they must be dumb then, no? Customers are not able to identify the latent problem that is lurking? How lame. Markets do not understand the utility you provide? How immature. Investors do not comprehend the scale you shall bring? How myopic. Sounds familiar? (Note the saracasm, please)

You may strongly believe all of the above as true !! That is besides the point for this post.

Rejections are inevitable. I am not an expert, but Economics (Macro or Micro) is the study of scarcity (due to existence of scarcity) isn't it?

Very broadly stated:
- Customers cannot buy from everyone.
- Markets cannot always accommodate everything having a utility (due to alternatives and irrationality that is pervasive)
- Investors cannot invest in every great idea.

Also, markets and economies are not equal across geographies (and even across time) so basing your rationality across markets or across time may not help.

Some of the good leaders I have studied or have had pleasure to work with, have one strong trait in common: They demonstrate tremendous maturity in handling rejections.

As an entrepreneur, nothing is more handy a tool than managing failures and rejections. This helps in conserving entrepreneurial-energy and dip back into the pool of irrational exuberance or optimism as some call.

Neither Van Gogh nor Tesla gave up in the face of failures to the end (They were in love with what they did). Yes its unfortunate that they are posthumously famous. Its (grossly) unfortunate 5 billion of the worlds population (across geographies, not that it matters) could not identify with them in their time.

Aside, principally though, your ability to resolve forward in the face of rejections has a higher probability of positive impact on your eco-system, than your human instinct to share experiences by considering your markets, customers or investors as lame (even if they happen to be lame) and giving up. [If your failures have had a impact or a burn-out due to which you cannot move forward, then that's a different matter which is valid.]

Also, consider the fact that maybe, (just a little maybe) that the markets, customers and investors are probably not that lame. Then, isn't it important to avoid the rut of ignorance (arrogance?) not seeing holes in your own proposition?

Does handling rejections teach you to sharpen your tool better? What is your opinion?

Where lies the rhetoric?

Its amazing how many debates exist out there on what should be the 'right' reasons to start a business. There are so many theories around making-meaning, start-to-scale, greed-is-good, fast-company etc... The proportions of these principles contradicting each other is high. Equal number of empirical evidence exists to hold each of these theory on its own. The empirical evidence is mostly either in the form of demonstrated success stories and strong learning post-success or some are retro-rationale (as some call it). Are there enough based on the principles of failure in this culture and economic context? Are there enough which are from here (India) and not pre-canned?

There seems to be camps which discourage entrepreneurs-in-the-making (EIM) to first find the 'right' reason. If the reasons does not match the eye-of-the-beholder, they are quick to dismiss the EIM as a wannabe. There is also a term 'wannapreneur' for such dismissals. This seems to be applicable to the ideas as well, which gets discouraged cause the beholder has a strong opinion against it. Woah!!!

Funnily enough, these dismissals does not come from the Investment community. Most of the investors I have come across or heard of have mostly NEVER dismissed an entrepreneur based on the stated right or wrong reasons of the EIM. Generally, the Indian investment community (I have no interactions with others) is really a mature lot in understanding that there is no point being predictive and judgmental about the reasons. Also the investors confess that they have no way to even tell, as a matter of fact, if a given idea is a great scalable idea which will have huge returns or not. They have invested in ideas they think are awesome and failed (Ok, there are many reasons to fail. I agree), and have passed great ideas, where they did not have enough gut-feel (yes, that feeling in their stomach, not the brain) but later found that it was a big hit (Yes, there are equally many reasons to succeed).

Shouldn't people start business based on whatever reasons, principles, theories they believe-in is right? If the reasons are 'strong enough' to make a difference then it shall find the early-adopters, and if it is 'right enough', they will cross the chasm.

If the markets are the best course of correction, then, shouldn't we encourage every one who is willing to crossover, to do so, independent of their reasons? Shouldn't the eco-system have a healthy amount of failure for everyone to figure out the cost of failure (or a new path to succeed) for whatever the reasons may be?

I am of the belief that India lacks by huge margins (yet) in the number of startups per year (given the per-capita measure). Also, it is way-early to define reasons/principles of success which are context, economy and culture specific, as there are very few successful startups or number of exits (yet). The only way to increase this is to initially increase the size of funnel before applying any "qualifications" to the funnel. The qualifiers are not known yet. Even if (hypothetically) known, its not reason enough to stop the inflow of entrepreneur-energy-capital.

Entrepreneurial-Energy is a scarce resource. Kindly, encourage them to start...