How many of you have failed before ?

SuffolkDesigns · Nov 25, 2005

How many of you that now have successful businesses (in this instance lets define "successful" as trading more than one year and is you main source of income or you employ others to run the business for you AND is profitable) have had businesses before that have failed ? and also how many ?

Myself I have had 3 failures, all of which failed due to my lack of knowledge in running a business and lack of planning and budgeting skills. Fortunately these expensive mistakes were not forgotten

Richard Conyard · Nov 25, 2005

3 as well here, unfortunately they were a little expensive (for me anyway), but going well now

epiphany · Nov 25, 2005

nice topic

0 for me, so I guess I will be bankrupt soon

SuffolkDesigns · Nov 25, 2005

Anyone prepared to put figures on failures ? my biggest loss to date was in the region of 20k

Rob Holmes · Nov 25, 2005

2 years work and er mumble thousands on my first failure - in the region of £20k

I learnt some great lessons!

Rob

Richard Conyard · Nov 25, 2005

Fortunately less than the 20K, although a lot of time was also lost.

The problem for me was that these were at early stages in my career and were funded by my own money (or rather the banks with me guranteeing it), so that hung around for a long while.

Richard Conyard · Nov 25, 2005

epiphany said:
nice topic
0 for me, so I guess I will be bankrupt soon

It's not as bad as it sounds, if everything works out rosey all the time you're either perfect or you're not pushing yourself. That doesn't mean that someone has to fail, but every business suffers set backs.

The trick is realising where you went wrong and not making the same mistake again.

MarkPearson · Nov 25, 2005

I am still pretty young and learning all the time.

But at 25 years old and having run my own businesses for the last 5 years.

They have all been successful to a degree, some more than others.

I have never invested more than a few thousand pounds into any business to get started. And have always grown the businesses with profits produced.

I am a workaholic and once I get an idea business I really work it 24/7 ( besides sleep)

Have I been lucky?

Or Just well planned and sensible....

creospace · Nov 25, 2005

My younger brother had an electrical business a few years ago that went down.

He's a fantastic electrician but a terrible businessman. By the time he told any of us it was to late to intervene.

I've been freelance for just over 2 years now and taking things slow as them come but hoping to build upon what I have.

Gary

Nov 25, 2005

0 for me. I put that down to luck and getting big clients on board from the start.
I alomost gave up after 6 months as had not business for 3 months. then hit a boom period.

Steve Roberts · Nov 25, 2005

I started and ran a publishing company in the 1980's and made the mistake of buying a printing company to complement this! The damn thing nearly brought me down. Eventually, I sold the publishing company and persuaded them to take the printing company off my hands. A year later the printing company went belly up. The publishing company, though, went from strength to strength.

The lessons I learned included:

1) Companies which need a high level of investment, in the form of plant & equipment, can be soul destroying. For example, I'd make a profit of, say, £200k then I'd be told that we need the latest 4-colour machine which costs £150k. Then we'd need more skilled operators to run it. Etc.. etc.. I ended up chasing my tail.

2) Don't chase losses. If it's not working and there's no clear solution, cut my losses immediately and consider it a lesson learned.

3) Focus on one thing only, but be very good at it.

4) Just because opportunities present themselves, it's important not to do anything without a clear business plan and exit-strategy.

multilingual · Nov 25, 2005

I was once told that you need to have a least three failures behind you before you can be considered a success.

After reading the above posts, I see we have some real success stories in here.

I can completely relate to Steve Roberts when he talks about running companies that require high investment in machinery. I had a plant and machinery hire company for 12 years, (not tool hire, the big stuff like excavators, tractors, JCBs, etc) and I never got infront with the cash-flow on keeping it all running properly.

I remember about 7 years ago when I had one debt owed to me of around 48k, and a finance repayment due to the bank for about the same. I didn't sleep for about 4 days, then his cheque arrived in the post on the same day as the bank called me in for a 'chat'.

We had champagne that night and then I realised that we were actually celebrating because we had avoided bankruptcy!! We were still skint, but it felt like a lottery win. When it gets like that it is time to look for an alternative carreer.

I decided to fold the whole thing up before it folded up around me.

I still consider that business to be a success though, because lasting 13 years in that industry is an achievement on its own. I learned more in those years than I could ever say, but I left with very little to show for it financially.

Doing better now though :wink:

JB

Cornish Steve · Nov 25, 2005

Steve Roberts said:
2) Don't chase losses. If it's not working and there's no clear solution, cut my losses immediately and consider it a lesson learned.

3) Focus on one thing only, but be very good at it.

4) Just because opportunities present themselves, it's important not to do anything without a clear business plan and exit-strategy.

I agree wholeheartedly with these three comments, and especially the last one. It's OK to chase new opportunuties as long as they are consistent with your company's purpose statement and core values. This is why, this time, we spent time coming up with these items very early in the game. They've been invaluable so far and helped us to stay focussed.

Jayne · Nov 25, 2005

Hi,

I am up to my 4th business. My first one was freelance design, only went for 3 months and I had to pack it in when we got our first bakery (The Bread Crock). We then sold that one and moved to a bigger bakery/cafe and sandwich shop, done well enough with that. I now have my new biz and we are selling the bakery. All this in 12 years :roll: Never been bankrupt, but struggled plenty, especially early on in business.

Now working on my next biz :lol:

Jayne

JoyDivision · Nov 25, 2005

I had a failed business venture but it was never ran as a proper business. I went round the pound stores buying stuff to sell on ebay, at first I was making £2-£5 on each item I sold. I thought I would be rich. But then other people started doing it and my it got to the point where I was selling this for £1.99 I had paid £1 for. By the time you took all the fees into account the true profit was about 20p per item. Then some items would not sell.

I am now left with a load of junk I cannot get rid off. So I made £200 profit, and then lost a lot of it.

I should have just quit a lot earlier.

My other failure was not a business but was very similar. It was a university society for people that lived at home. We invested a lot of money in promoting it, it turned out to be a complete disaster. It suffered a major image problem as being the geeks society and other a handful of people were interested I could not get a response. The problem is most students that live at home were not interested in socialising.

However chairman of the union asked me to if I would take part in the elections for the next leader, I decided against it becuase my studies would have been affected deeply. So in that instance the failure was not me, but more the market. It was a great idea which has backed by the university, but I simply could not get people to join.

Jayne is it correct to say thay you're a serial entrepreneur?

Jayne · Nov 25, 2005

Yes, except i'm not rich. I just decide to do something and get on with it, makes it more fun that way

Jayne

wheelie2 · Nov 25, 2005

None yet, but all my savings have gone into the business and i'm being supported by my family while things are slow. Business takes so long to come in and cashflow is key to survival. I've considered packing it in at one point when I had no work, but things seem to be picking up slowly, and if I pack it in I'll never know...

JustOneUK · Nov 25, 2005

vshosting said:
Anyone prepared to put figures on failures ? my biggest loss to date was in the region of 20k

Great question VS,

I lost 24K on the stockmarket last year...does that count?

Top Hat · Nov 25, 2005

This is our first business, going well, growing fast, been running for 6 years, employing people and making a profit.

So no failures here.

multilingual · Nov 25, 2005

Joy,

So in that instance the failure was not me, but more the market. It was a great idea, but I simply could not get people to join.

I must remember that one.

:wink:

You can't blame the market for a product failure, it just doesn't work like that.

The Sinclair C5 was a briliant product, it's just that no-one bought it.

Why did no-one buy it?

Because it's was a bad idea! (Technically brilliant, but a bad idea)

Don't confuse the two.

JB

JoyDivision · Nov 25, 2005

But it was a great idea in theory, it just didn't work. The idea was to organise social events for the students that lived at home. It was my idea but it got the backing of the union. Everybody thought it would be great and solve a lot of problems for people that lived at home.

Where we went wrong though is market research. We should have realised that most people who lived at home lived miles away and were not interested in meeting for a good old booze up. Even to this day I still think it was a good idea, but with a very small budget I could not hire semi naked models to promote it

I managed to get more than 100 members to join, what I couldn't do is get them to come to meetings or anything, so although on paper it was a big sucess in reality it was nothing more than a farse.

PS Ideas that don't work probably are a bad idea

. So you're right it was a bad idea.

fastfences · Nov 25, 2005

multilingual said:
I was once told that you need to have a least three failures behind you before you can be considered a success.

JB

Just wondering if some of my learned colleagues could help me out here.

Does one apply the above philosophy to marriage?
:?
cheers, Nigel

Jayne · Nov 25, 2005

fastfences said:
multilingual said:

I was once told that you need to have a least three failures behind you before you can be considered a success.

JB

Click to expand...

Just wondering if some of my learned colleagues could help me out here.

Does one apply the above philosophy to marriage?
:?
cheers, Nigel

Lol...don't know, still working on the first :lol:

Jayne

SuffolkDesigns · Nov 25, 2005

multilingual said:
I was once told that you need to have a least three failures behind you before you can be considered a success.

Hmmmm, not so sure about that, my list works like this

success
failure
failure
sucess
failure
success
success
success

I have definately learnt alot from the failures, and am alot more confident now in making tough decisions however without my first success the others would not have happened as it financed the following failures

I was in a position where I thought "this is easy" but found out it was very hard indeed......

Enigma121 · Nov 25, 2005

multilingual said:
I was once told that you need to have a least three failures behind you before you can be considered a success.

That's gotta be rubbish hasn't it? How many failures did Bill Gates have before he dabbled in that little software business - now what was it called again?

I don't like the man's products, but you have to hand it to him he's really lived the dream.

On a personal level no failures yet, as it's our first venture. As things stand it's not likely that we will have one either - unless something goes REALLY wrong.

Our team's background is the software industry anyway, so if things don't work out on the freelance front there is always a job out there somewhere.

multilingual · Nov 25, 2005

It was an American businessman who told me that as we chatted over a coffee at Heathrow a few years ago.

He started asking me about my business failures, and I was a bit confused. I just said, "er....none"

He then told me that you need at least three failures before you could be called a success.

(It may have been that he had had three failures in a row and he was trying to not sound like a loser)

I suppose I should have said, 'if at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style'.

JB

robbie williams · Nov 25, 2005

2 failed
2 never really got off the ground
1 - working really well so far..
(I still work full-time in business development for another company :wink: )

Cornish Steve · Nov 25, 2005

multilingual said:
It was an American businessman who told me that as we chatted over a coffee at Heathrow a few years ago.

That may be in part because American law is so lenient to businesses that fail. The environment is set up to encourage everyone to be an entrepreneur. With that type of small business culture, failure is just another stepping stone on the road to success.

DuaneJackson · Nov 26, 2005

JoyDivision said:
But it was a great idea in theory

'nuff said.[/i]

Click to expand...

Enigma121 · Nov 26, 2005

multilingual said:
I suppose I should have said, 'if at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style'.
JB

That quote is priceless...

The Americans do seem to be very tolerant of business failure, it's like an everyday thing for them.

Personally I can't imagine what it would be like to keep dusting myself off, then starting all over again with another business over and over again. Perhaps that's why I focus so much on this one.

I suppose most people are just in business to get rich quick, so they do anything that makes money and don't get too attached to one idea. For us it's more about job satisfaction and earning a reasonable crust.

duenna · Nov 26, 2005

We started our care agency in 2001. Still here so to speak. We do struggle but thats just life as we have come to expect it.

Now concentrating on I.T circles and in the new year we plan another training business. (Mad Cow Training wifes idea)

Work is better when the work is yours.

Shelley · Nov 27, 2005

0 for me, but there were a few times i thought that losing the business was near. I supppose it also depends on what industry you are in and certain inffleunces.

gary · Nov 27, 2005

I'm not sure I would call the experiences mentioned above "failures" - I've had businesses of some sort since I was about 10, and although few of them ever made me much more than just pocket money, I would never consider any of them failures. Each one has taught me something, no matter how small, and I have no doubt that any current success is partly due to what I have learned previously. If on the other hand I took nothing from those experiences, and didn't learn from them, then I would consider that I have failed, rather than the business.

Steve Roberts · Nov 27, 2005

multilingual said:
I was once told that you need to have a least three failures behind you before you can be considered a success.

I've heard that quoted many times before. It's the sort of thing that many people nod to as it sounds "profound". However, having considered it I reckon it's a load of cobblers!

Imagine you had to invest every last asset you owned into a business venture and two people made a pitch to you.

Person 1: Has started four companies and three of them are thriving businesses, making lots of money and one has failed;

Person 2: Has started four companies, three of which have failed and the fourth is stuttering along;

I think I know where my punt would go.

tommy · Nov 28, 2005

I have have had one failure and just started another one up so hoping this one is an success.

The failure one had losses of 3k. And it got to the point where I decided to shutdown before any more losses occured.

I did learn so much from my failure that I wrote down where I went wrong got other people who where close to the business to also write down where they think I went wrong and now use them as a sort of guide.

daveashton · Nov 28, 2005

So no loses
2 sold up
1 dormant
1 going well
2 flying

StoneLink · Nov 28, 2005

I've learned to change my approach and be flexible about how I go about things before it get's too late... I recently changed the coaching aspect of the business to what I was doing best- developing and implementing strategy.

Cheers,
Nicholas Tsiougos

StoneLink
Business Strategy Consulting
www.stonelink.net
"The Strategic Solution" :lol:

Dec 26, 2005

25K and 2 years time. O dear.

But the knowledge gained allowed the next 5 years to be very profitable in a new business.

And I am actually now starting the first business again with the experience I have gained.

bwglaw · Dec 26, 2005

1 for me, although I dont see it as a 'failure'. I started my own Painting and Decorating business after qualifying (yes, qualifying - not many decorators qualify) I specialised in specialist decorating such as wide vinyls (the paper you see in the banks), spraying, decorative effects i.e. marble etc.

I got a £2k grant and £4k loan from the Prince's Trust. I was only 19, had my own van, office and some work by word of mouth. After submitting so many quotations/tenders for contracts I could not make the money at £8/hour when competing with cowboys. Was runner-up for a Crown Berger Decorator of the Year Award!!

I decided at some point to go to Unversity because I enjoyed doing business and dealing with contracts, health and safety. A friend inspired me to study law so I closed the business and after an eloquent report to Prince's Trust they wrote off the debt. However, for many years I carried the business debts with me and affected my credit.

I am now CEO/Legal Director of a holding company and have many other businesses attached. Before forming the holding company I thought we were on the brink of bankruptcy because we had large debts, and a 'volunteer' took us to Tribunal for unfair dismissal :? :evil: That was 3 years ago. We published a magazine for deaf/hard of hearing people whom this 'volunteer' was involved. I spent thousands and even though it was running at a loss I was determined to see it through but then gave up.

Now the holding company is formed, no debts, excellent credit I am now flying. I am now getting the Group to invest in other enterprises and property. I think that if it wasnt for my legal expertise the business would have failed because I was able to challenge lawyers/creditors etc. Plan to retire at 40 at this rate!

gordonthegofor · Dec 26, 2005

First business as a roadie (moving band equipment around) never made a lot of money but never lost any.
Second subcontract joiner (carpenter) on site then move into working direct for private customers employed a few other joiners all going well, bank increasing my overdraft with a simple phone cal., Then looking properly at my books realised I was over spending (on company and personally)went to reign in just as Maggie Thatcher upped the interest rates (5% up to 15% in about 3 months) went from turning over £3000 a week to scraping £300 a week, went bankrupt for 10K (not a lot really) have now built a stair company (employing me and some casual labour) in its 11th year

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How many of you have failed before ?

SuffolkDesigns

SuffolkDesigns

MarkPearson

creospace

Steve Roberts

multilingual

Jayne

JoyDivision

Jayne

JustOneUK

multilingual

JoyDivision

fastfences

Jayne

SuffolkDesigns

Enigma121

multilingual

robbie williams

Enigma121

duenna

Shelley

Steve Roberts

tommy

StoneLink