Why risk success?

So rather than aim for success, why not aim for failure? It’s probably where you’ll end up anyway.

By the mere act of even considering the idea of starting a business, you’re most of the way to failure. 90% of start-ups fail. See how easy it is?

Starting a business is an inherently stupid idea. Your mum and dad, your friends, gosh even the government wants to discourage you.

Being an employee is the sensible option. You’ll have rights and benefits; you’ll have simpler taxes; it’ll be easier to get a mortgage; you’ll even qualify for furlough.

Society is literally screaming at you: don’t do it!

You need to hurry up and fail so you can get back to work. This guide is to help you eliminate that 10% chance of success.

The more catastrophic and embarrassing your failure is, the better.

Just think of the inspirational stories you will be able to tell.

Negative Mental Attitude

Let’s start with your attitude. If you want to fail before you start, here are some ideas to help you on your way. Or not.

“The thing I love about being a founder is that it’s acceptable to make mistakes. I wouldn’t be where I am without my mistakes…etc…”

You want to be like your heroes and heroines, so you want to sound like them. Never mind that you have probably learnt the wrong lessons in the past and will continue to learn the wrong lessons in the future. And that you’ll never really be able to tell the difference. Just say you’ve learnt a lot and let everyone bask in your self-effacing yet curiously arrogant wisdom.

“Success is overrated, I love what I do!”

Success is only overrated if you do not love what you do. From failure we often learn that trying isn’t worth it. Paradoxically, if we don’t enjoy our success we also learn that trying isn’t worth it. If you’re disappointed when you succeed you’re just not doing the thing that makes you happy. So go ahead, start a business you don’t care about: at least you won’t be disappointed either way.

“Other people have made errors, but I’m different. I’m not going to waste time reading books like the Lean Startup or the Mom Test. My idea is genius and genius knows no rules!”

You want to protect that genesis spark, that fragile little flame that needs sheltering from the light breath of experience that might blow it out. If you’re intimidated by words on a page, you’ll be back in your day job before you can read “P45”.

“If it’s not hurting it isn’t working, right!? Every day is a struggle but that’s the only way to the top!”

EXACTLY. Have that Elon Musk quote about “chewing glass and staring into the abyss” in the front of your mind. If you hate your day, hate the people you work with and are full of fear and doubt, that is DEFINITELY going to bring you success. Trust me.

The light bulb moments

Even if you have a positive mental attitude, fear not – you can always fail if your idea is terrible. And let’s face it: it probably is.

“I did my customer surveys, tested my idea for soluble roof tiles, now I am just going to focus and get this thing done!”

Not necessarily guaranteed to fail, this one, so you’ll have to be vigilant. First off, you must refuse to admit that your initial idea is probably lame. Close your ears to other ideas that might improve your offer. Remember your Tennyson: “Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. The Valley of Death, that sounds like 90% failure territory, doesn’t it?

“I explore new ideas every day - call me an ideas factory! Wait, an ideas factory… that’s a great idea!”

The equal and opposite error of ploughing on regardless. Too many half-decent ideas is a bigger problem than too few. If you want to be crippled by indecision, lost in a haze of unfocused and endless opportunity, then follow that white rabbit down every hole and see if you end up in Wonderland.

“I’ve thought about my idea a lot and I KNOW this will work. I registered my trademark for Pink Fluffy Bicycles and make sure everyone I talk to signs an NDA. Now I’m good to start testing my idea with customers!”

The likelihood is not that other people will steal your idea, it’s that your idea is crap.

A startup is an experiment. If you discuss your idea widely you will collect good and bad responses which are all points on a graph, and therefore useful. If you want to waste time and money, go ahead and register that IP before you know whether anyone will actually buy what you want to sell.

“Execution is worth millions”

So you’ve somehow got a great mental attitude and a good idea. You can bury them both with poor execution.

“I’m just feeling my way. There’s no point in planning as the plan always changes.”

Very sensible. Just keep meandering around without focus, that’s how all the hardest things in life are achieved.

“I’ve got my organogram sorted, the perfect business plan, detailed financial projections and everything. Now I just need to talk to some customers!”

Put in lots of work on something without knowing whether any of it will work, or whether you will have any employees. Then when you do start asking people, your disappointment is guaranteed to sap your motivation and have you crawling back to your old boss.

“I believe in the free market and that government help is for pansy-ass socialists!”

OK, so people don’t really talk like this. But there is plenty of government help available. It’s complex to get, so save time and avoid it at all costs. Your business will collapse much faster without it.

“I hate conflict! Let’s keep doing what we’re doing and play it safe!”

If you like excruciating goodbyes, this one is for you. Acknowledging that your business is a work in progress is for other people. Discarding processes, suppliers or team members that don’t work, why that sounds like too much disruption, doesn’t it? Ignore Dylan Thomas and go gently into that good night.

“My customers love my idea and I’m as tough as old boots, so we’ll get there!”

Perilously close to success this one, but thankfully falling at the most important hurdle. A great idea and resilience is not enough. It’s all about the execution and the decisions you make: when to plough on, when to pivot. When to listen and when to speak. It’s the wisdom to make those calls which is key. Thankfully, it sounds like you don’t have that.

“I focus group and test every single decision I make, so that everything is perfect!”

Perfectionists shouldn’t be founders. Because while a business idea that is 90% right it is 100% wrong, a practical step that is 90% right is a massive achievement. The perfect is the enemy of the good; it’s also the ally of those, like you, who want to fail.  

“I’m getting everything ready building my product so am not really worried about getting cash or investment at this stage.”

Money is a bit grubby for your idea, after all. They say cash is king, but you’re a republican. Even the best funded business will fail if you don’t get cash through the door, so well done – you’ve guaranteed disaster – it’s only a matter of time.

Hell is other people

Whatever your business is, at some point you will need to talk and listen to other people. If you want to fail as unpleasantly as possible, read on.

“People just don’t get me! They are always so critical, they don’t understand!”

They’re probably not being that critical, and there’s always useful things to hear, but getting easily irritated and turning a deaf ear is great to ensure quick and calamitous failure.

Classic annoying things people say:

Scenario 1

• What people say: “Sounds a lot like [x] - have you heard of them? They’re really cool!”
• Translation: Your idea is rubbish.
• Your best reaction: “Yeh but but… they’re rubbish! I’m not like that at all – you really haven’t understood at all.” Once you’re done whining, you should then go and research the competitor in detail and obsess over them until you decide to give up entirely. Life is just too hard!

Scenario 2

• What people say: “Have you thought of problem [y]?”
• Translation: Your idea is rubbish.
• Your best reaction: See response to scenario 1. Also, you see that big pile of sand over there? Go forthwith and stick your head in it.

Scenario 3

• What people say: This is a great idea!
• Translation: This is a rubbish idea! But please can we talk about something else because I don’t want to hurt your feelings.
• Your best reaction: Two options here: 1. You detect the lie and insist that your mum tells you what she really thinks and then refuse to speak to them ever again or 2. Blithely assume that your mum is telling you the truth as she invites you to Christmas dinner.

“I want my team to grow organically. Good people will find me and buy into my mission and I’m like the best judge of character so I’m going to follow my gut!”

Sure. Because recruitment is not difficult at all. To make sure you fail at the most painful way possible (acrimoniously with your co-founders and employees, possibly with a lawsuit thrown in) be sure to treat the people you work with as an afterthought or something you can do instinctively like deciding what socks to wear.

“Why does everyone always try to sell to me! OMG it’s so ANNOYING!”

You want to sell to some people, others want to sell to you. Be as rude as possible to those you don’t want to speak to. They are timewasters. Your rude behaviour will never reach the ears of anyone else; and there is no way that the person to whom you are rude could one day be quite useful or even, don’t even think it, a friend. Nice guys finish last after all.

“I talk to so many people but I’m useless at remembering names. If they’re interested in my business they will follow up with me!”

You want to waste time, do not keep notes of all the conversations you have with people and certainly not in any kind of date order. Don’t record the details – if they mention their partners’ names, their origins, their children or their pets, that’s of no interest to you at all. Who cares if they have a kid! You’re probably never going to speak to them again so why bother?

Keep going

If you give up, you’ll fail. So even if you do everything else to make a success: abandoning your business to its fate will also seal it.

“This-is-really-hard-and-is-taking-up-a-lot-of-time-and-I-don’t-really-know-if-it’s-going-anywhere-so-I’m-just-going-to-go-back-to-the-day-job-and-try-out-the-business-in-the-background.”

Sure you are. The key to success is not brains or charisma or money: it’s sticking at it, day after day after day. To do that, you really need to have conviction and passion. That will help you ride out the disappointments and keep going. If you want to give up, you don’t need any help from me to fail – you’re already there.

“Everything is against us, customers don’t understand the mission and want us to do something else, but we are CONVINCED, and are sticking with Plan A!”

Whereas resilience and conviction mean you are likely to succeed, being stubborn and blinkered means you are likely to fail. So well done! Your startup is a tiny boat, full of holes, on a determined but unknowable sea. Chances are you’ll sink anyway, but to be absolutely sure, you should fight the prevailing winds at every opportunity. Don’t harness the winds of negative feedback, that might lead to success.

“The great thing about working for yourself is you can take time off if you’re having a bad day!”

And as you’re in charge, you can declare every day a bad day, and commit yourself to being a bum. When you have a bad day or a lazy day, so does your business. When you aren’t motivated, when you’re bored or plodding, a sensible founder might at least tick off some admin. But no, for you, the solution is to have a day off. Maybe just retire?

“I have no time for time off or stuff like music or poetry. I’m 100% head down focussed on my task.”

Your brain is a machine, after all, not a sensitive organ which has evolved over millions of years to need culture, art and inspiration. So run your brain hot, all the time, and see what happens. Reading poetry, like Kipling’s poem ‘If’ or Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ is for sissies. You won’t be a man, my son, you’ll be a fizzled-out failure.

Day to day

If you’re miraculously managing to avoid the mistakes so far, you can still ensure failure by focussing on the small things.

“The word ‘no’ is not in my vocab. I say yes to everything because my big break might be just around the corner!”

The enthusiastic puppy approach to running a company. Let other people control your diary, don’t be judicious about events you agree to attend. If someone wants to sell you something irrelevant to your business, what do you say? Yes please! If a competitor wants to engage in small talk for hours, what do you say? Bring it on!

“I spend all day flitting between big picture creative stuff and fiddly details!”

Imagine a triathlon where instead of swim-cycle-run the athlete had to hop randomly between trunks, wheels and running shoes during a race. It is difficult to move between skills, and your brain takes a bit of time to adjust. You might be multi-tasking but you’re heading down a one-way street to failure.

“My priorities take care of themselves – if something is urgent, it gets done!”

This delusion is first class ticket to failure town. Work on anything you feel like on any given day. Don’t prioritise. Just drift around without direction. By the end of the day you will feel like you have done a full day’s work and have nothing to show for it. Repeat until you give up.

“I trust my suppliers to get on with the job – they’ll deliver what they promised on-budget and on-time!”

Oh you guys. While you’re instructing your lawyers / developers / marketing agency can I also sell you this second-hand car? Sensible founders project-manage the important things themselves, reviewing regularly and imposing deadlines. But not you. Never you.

“I have one goal each day, to be the first unicorn which manufactures inflatable teapots. My whole day – nay, life – is dedicated to that one goal.”

It’s much easier to fail at one big goal than lots of little ones so you avoid breaking down your goals into steps. Don’t have any other projects on the go either (especially those with any measurable, incremental successes you might actually achieve). If you allow yourself small successes in one part of your life, before you know it, you’ll be feeling good and achieving success in your business too. Avoid.

“Yah, as a former investment banker I’ve got this startup thing nailed. They call me a master of the universe so I think I can master a young team of hipsters, hustlers and hackers. Yah.”

In larger businesses you have lots of experts around you and processes to ensure that things get done, so you might as well treat a startup in the same way. Act like you already have a corner office and that your wish is everyone else’s command. Ignore the fact that all your team (including you) are doing things for the first time and learning every day. Bully your team, pound your keyboard and bemoan how useless everything is. Then watch your business melt away sooner than you can say “constructive dismissal”.

Planning to fail is failing to plan

Taken one at a time, any of the above will likely lead to failure, but why not get creative and combine them?

Avoid planning, be easily offended by criticism and protect your idea to the extent that you never tell anyone about it. No point in taking chances.

But beware, if you’re really rubbish, you might even mess it up when you’re trying to fail.

And if you fail at failure, who knows, you might even end up successful.

And then where will you be?