Menu
Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don’t need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision – a way to be more successful – they have to remain nimble enough to take it.
The attributes for entrepreneurs cut both ways. You need the ability to ignore inconvenient facts and see the world as it should be and not as it is. This inspires people to take huge leaps of faith. But this blindness to facts can be a liability, too. The characteristics that help entrepreneurs succeed can also lead to their failure.
Our educational system is not preparing people for the 21st Century. Failure is an essential part of entrepreneurship. If you work hard, you can get an ‘A’ pretty much guaranteed, but in entrepreneurship, that’s not how it works.
Start-ups make so many mistakes that the challenge to identify the root cause of a failure is tough. But believing in your own plan is probably the worst.
I can’t say I’m not grateful to have journalists writing about me as a genius. But I know it’s not true. I’m not confused. I understand that success comes through a lot of failure and a lot of very embarrassing failure. People want to create the next Facebook, but they are too afraid to create the next Facemash.