5 STARTUP Founders Share BIG “Failures”

“Don’t spend dumb money”

Perhaps entrepreneurs have heard the immortal advice “If you fail, fail quickly”. But then what do we do and how do you learn from those mistakes?

The journey of starting a business is like a roller coaster ride: To the top when everything is going right, then to the bottom when it goes off course. The concept of “flearning” – failing, but learning from those mistakes – holds an important place in the startup lifecycle and is often what makes businesses grow.

We asked many founders to share some of the most important lessons they learned from “starting up” and how it has transformed their businesses.

“We realized that we would be crushed.”

Bruce Wren is the co-founder and CEO of regtech startup 1WordFlow, which specializes in virtual information management.

His vision is to digitize Word documents at scale, make them always available online on any device and thus democratize the publishing process.

Initially, 1WordFlow deployed its technology to Microsoft Sharepoint customers at headquarters. “It was a big mistake,” he told Startup Daily.

“We won a couple of big deals, but every implementation has to be customized for each customer’s unique environment – which would take a lot of time and money. We realized that sooner or later we would be crushed,” Wren said.

He estimates that after investing about $2.5 million in IP, they wasted about a fifth of that.

Inspired by streaming platforms for music and movies, Wren says “A-ha!” The moment came when they realized they were working with Microsoft and Azure cloud technology to be able to help them.

“We have effectively rebuilt the cloud product. It can now turn a 100-page document into a 100-page web page in minutes,” Wren said. “The flexibility is out of scale and it costs almost nothing to do with it.”

How to choose the right person

A classic piece of advice from many founders is that businesses need influencers around them. Many admit to making mistakes in this area.

Ian Yip, CEO of cybersecurity startup Avertro said that: “One of his early mistakes was not selecting the right advisors, investors and employees”

He said: “A lot of time was wasted on people who would never end up doing what they were told”

Yip says that there are many people who like the idea of linking up with startups, but in the end they don’t really deliver any value.

“A good test is to try asking the respondent to do a small thing to help you,” he suggests.

“If they can’t even do that, there’s no way they’ll be useful to your business. Since then, we’ve adapted saying “yes” to all forms of support to be much more selective when looking for influencers who can help us get to the higher place”.

Don’t spend “dumb money”

Emily Rich is the Director of Startups APAC at Microsoft, a venture capital manager and former founder of M8 Ventures.

She says that one of the startups that has raised a lot of money: “I have funded my business from people who have no start-up experience such as venture capitalists, venture capitalists, etc. well-known angelic institutions or cooperative organizations”.

“With “dumb” money, you will not get more experience and help and it can even be an obstacle to scaling later.”

Get to know your radar for hedging

Even if your hiring is good and ensures proper investment, external circumstances can disrupt your business at any time.

Nigel Fellowes-Freeman is the founder and CEO of insuretech Kanopi.

Launched in Melbourne in 2019, with global aspirations, the startup has hired a number of key employees who are foreign nationals. When COVID-19 hit and Australia’s borders closed, some of them had to leave and could not return.

“The battle for talent is very real,” says Nigel. Our mistake was probably taking advantage of too many international staff. That’s great from a cultural and conceptual perspective, but it puts businesses at risk when visa conditions change.

“As Kanopi moves to enter the US market, Nigel said it will learn from its early mistakes and hire the least externally influenced core people to focus on. in company development.

They will also diversify their risks in terms of partners, suppliers and customers.

“As an entrepreneur, sometimes you have to take calculated risks and believe that things will work out,” he said. “In the early days of establishing the company, we put a lot of faith in a number of important partners. We know that when you work with large corporations, their priorities can change quickly. The single dependency of work or revenue takes a toll on you, especially if you don’t have control over them.”

Focus on your core market

Moving into new markets can be devastating for a growing startup, admits Tim Duggan, co-founder of Junkee Media.

Tim says that: “One of the biggest mistakes we make is trying to get into another country without realizing the resources and energy it takes to tackle a larger market,”.

“In the end, we focused too much, took our eyes off the Australian business and almost failed. Bigger is not always better in business.”

Stuff-ups that redefine the business

For Bruce Wren, his initial mistake redefined the business.

And he is happy that 1WordFlow technology is now not only supporting large corporations, but has recently had a very clear positive impact during the COVID pandemic in areas that really need help.

Recently, 1WordFlow was asked to assist a client in the aged care sector who was struggling to effectively communicate new COVID procedures to its staff, patients and families Surname.

“In a few days, we created a website in Azure, converting their existing guidelines and document processing into accessible web pages,” he said.

Using existing Azure AI technology, pages can be instantly translated into multiple relevant languages.

Had it not been for Wren’s original mistake, this solution might never have been possible.