A Few Lessons I Learned After Having Failed

by Tyler Reed

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan

It was mid 2008 and Younique was doing reasonably well. However, I had an itch that I needed to scratch. I wanted to build a mobile advertising platform – think DoubleClick meets AdMob. At the time the mobile advertising market wasn’t as competitive as it is today. Towards the end of 2008, I decided to forgo the R3m+ revenue Younique was likely to generate for 2009, shut it all down and found what would today be known as Aduity.

Unfortunately things haven’t turned out as planned. I’m not going to go through exactly what went wrong, it’s still a little too early. However, as the founder, I have to take responsibility for the failure irrespective of what went wrong. I am publishing this because I want to force myself to become more comfortable with failure and to also encourage other tech entrepreneurs to share their failure(s).

1. Great Technology isn’t the Silver Bullet

We built some great technology. I think the most impressive piece of technology we developed was a version of iAd for Nokia devices, which was no easy task. Unfortunately you need more than technology. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come. It is important to pay attention to market timing, sales and marketing that equals, if not trumps, your product development efforts.

2. Release Early, Release Often

It’s something that has been said over and over again, but when you’re in the driving seat it’s easier said than done. I am a perfectionist and want things to be perfect. We had our first trial run after 3 months of development but it took us almost a year to put out our first major release (and quietly too). After a few months it was clear that our mediation layer feature was most used, so we ended up ditching everything else and turning the mediation layer into the product. If we released earlier, we would have known that sooner and saved ourselves precious time and wasted code.

3. Raising Capital is Time & Energy Consuming

I wasn’t 100% familiar with the process of raising capital until I actually did. It takes time to find the right investors, never mind those who will actually back you. It takes time to negotiate the term sheet. Once you’ve got a signed term sheet, there’s still due diligence, then drafting of agreements and once those are signed, you finally get the money. In an ideal world it should take less than 3 months (once you’ve got a yes), but it can take up to 6 months and in some cases longer. It is time and energy consuming and will affect you and your team as it remains top of mind.

4. It’s a Priceless Learning Experience

I can only become a better entrepreneur by learning from both success and failure. Arguably you learn more from failure. I would have preferred to fail faster, but then I would have missed out on some of the other learning opportunities. I have definitely learned to manage a team of developers and designers much better. I am now more intimately familiar with the process of raising capital. I have also picked up a few more skills along the way and more importantly have learned and grown more than I had expected to.

Conclusion

One might think that I have wasted almost 3 years and the large sum of capital I personally committed. One might think I was foolish to even attempt it in the first place. I like to look at this way. I have no regrets. I was able to pursue an idea that allowed me to meet incredible people along the way that have contributed to my growth as an individual. I have failed at a young age, and might do so again, but everything I go through now makes me a better entrepreneur – like wine I get better with time!