Money Isn’t Lost

It is the reality
of business building
that some businesses
won’t survive.

I once worked
for one of the largest
beverage companies in the world.
The company had over a century
of history
in developing products.
We spent millions of dollars
testing if a product
would work or not.

And fewer than
1 in 10 products
survived.

Business failure is tough
but it isn’t a failure of YOU.
It is just part of building businesses.

And it isn’t completely wasted
time or money or other resources.

One of the (many) things
that gives me peace
when products and companies fail
is…
the money invested
isn’t ever lost.
It is transferred.

It paid salaries, for example.
Someone put food
on their table
because we started that company.

It built other businesses,
as another example.
Suppliers were paid
and those funds
might have made a difference
in THOSE companies.

Even failed companies
contribute to the world.

Remember that.

Failure In New Business Development

New business development
consists of trial and error.
Very few people
develop the best product or service
for their target market
the first time.

We develop a product.
We test it.
It fails.
We revise the product.
We test it.
It fails a little less.

We repeat the process
again and again
until we get it right.

Seth Godin
shares

“Failure is a way
of discovering
one more thing
that customers didn’t want,
and perhaps,
learning a bit about
what they might want.
By iterating
without tears or fears,
organizations are able
to discover things
about their future customers.”

Expect the first few tries
at new business development
to fail.

Don’t become emotionally attached
to those products/services
and
don’t become discouraged.
It is part of the process.
Failure is supposed to occur.