Ryan’s Journal: Fail Forward
by Ryan Pew
I attended a tech talk recently that was put on by the Tampa Bay Tech Garage here in Tampa, FL. Like most mid sized cities we have some thriving tech companies as well as startups.
The tech garage is an incubator that provides mentoring, work spaces and community to those that are growing their businesses. One way they facilitate this is by hosting talks with well established owners who can speak to their trials and successes, all in an effort to grow the tech community in our area.
Side note: if your reading this and you’re cold then consider the Tampa/St Petersburg area, it’s warm, full of sun and has a thriving community.
The discussion I attended centered on how failure is inevitable, but creates innovation and break-throughs if approached in the right way.
Our speaker was Chad Nuss, CEO of Inside Out, a sales innovation lab that teaches, tests and optimizes sales teams across the country. He had been the owner of several startups with successful exits and is just a great guy to be around. In his different roles he has also experienced epic failures that he had to learn from.
The topic was relevant in a lot of ways.
In tech we tend to say that revenue covers a multitude of sins. The evidence is there when you look at the Ubers or [insert any other money-losing company] of the moment.
Successful people also have epic failures, but if they are generating revenue it shouldn’t matter.
This is the wrong approach! It leads to us brushing off failure, burying our head in the sand and not learning. It is one reason you see companies have spectacular rises and sudden falls.
There is a better way.
Examining a failure in your life can be humbling, but also rewarding. You can learn from it, approach it differently next time, or achieve a breakthrough.
As I look at my own life I can count the many ways I have failed and repeated that same mistake again. I actually do not mind failing but I hate repeating that.
How often have you achieved a breakthrough or innovation after a failure?
What did you learn and how did you make it better?
As we go forward we shouldn’t fear failure, we should embrace it and grow.
Happy failing!
Flickr image credit: Jason Tester Guerrilla Futures
