Never fear failure

Steve Blank, a renowned technology entrepreneur and author, understands success and failure intimately. With seven startups under his belt, Blank has experienced the highs of success and the lows of public failure. His candid reflections reveal the invaluable lessons he learned when one of his ventures, a highly publicized video game company, collapsed. Blank’s story is a testament to the resilience required to embrace failure, learn from it, and move forward.

Failure is often seen as the end, but in Blank’s case, it became a stepping stone to greater understanding and additional success. His words remind us that the fear of failure can be more limiting than failure itself. By taking risks and accepting setbacks as part of the journey, we can discover what’s truly possible.

“I reached what I then thought was the pinnacle of my career when I raised tens of millions of dollars and became CEO of my seventh startup… a hot new video game company. My picture was in all the business magazines, and made it onto the cover of Wired magazine. Life was perfect.

“And then one day it wasn’t.

“It all came tumbling down. We had believed our own press, inhaled our own fumes and built lousy games. Customers voted with their wallets and didn’t buy our products. The company went out of business. Given the press we had garnered, it was a pretty public failure.

“We let our customers, our investors, and our employees down. While it was easy to blame it on others…and trust me at first I tried… in the end it was mostly a result of my own hubris—the evil twin of entrepreneurial passion and drive.

“I thought my career and my life were over. But I learned that in Silicon Valley, honest failure is a badge of experience.

“In fact, unlike in the movies, most startups actually fail. For every Facebook and Zynga that make the press, thousands just never make it at all.

“All of you will fail at some time in your career…or in love, or in life.

“No one ever sets out to fail. But being afraid to fail means you’ll be afraid to try. Playing it safe will get you nowhere.”

_{Source: Blank, Steve. Philadelphia University. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 15 May 2011. Commencement Address.. Retrieved from: Steveblank.com}