In the past, if a business was failing, a founder was encouraged to fail fast and learn from their mistakes. It was thought to be an achievement to have multiple businesses under your belt even if they were failures. Better to get your licks quickly then to disappear into the abyss. That was before March 2022 when basically everyone was hit with the reality of a global pandemic. Folks were forced to pivot, and the ones who looked internally and found the will to iterate and try again had a chance of survival. Startups were amongst the businesses that got back up and found ways to reinvent themselves and evolve. Giving up was not an option. This culture of persistence led to innovation.    

When I think about the qualities of startups that I want to incorporate into my own business, it’s not a mythical embrace of failure that comes to mind. It’s the determined way they iterate to keep failure at bay. This is the quality among entrepreneurs that I believe any organization should learn from. Within an environment where it’s actually safe to fail, we can leverage it more widely and unlock its full potential.

We’ve baked this principle into our own organization by making it a core value: “iterate everything, always.” It’s a recognition that, to meet our long-term goals, we can’t afford to have fixed ideas about how we’ll reach them. We know that moving forward involves changing direction quickly and often. Our customers’ needs change—and so do the experiences that their own customers want. Keeping up with those needs, finding the right way to create value, is an ongoing process. It’s not a case of having one good idea and sticking to it.

Source:

Learning the right lessons from startup culture

Vandeboom, Jason

Fast Company, April 1, 2022

https://www.fastcompany.com/90736918/learning-the-right-lessons-from-startup-culture