1. Lessons in Failure
Entrepreneurship is a journey through zeroes
@liveink Nov 2013

2. Why are we talking about
Failure?

3. Managing Your Own
Psychology
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“By far the most difficult skill for me to learn as CEO was the ability to manage
my own psychology… It’s like the fight club of management: The first rule of the
CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown.”
http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/01/what%E2%80%99s-the-most-difficult-ceo-skill-managing-your-own-psychology/

4. 3 Things

5. A. Two Different Camps Regarding Failure
B. My journey through the zeroes (failures)
C. My lessons learned

6. Glorify Failure Camp
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/google-wave-eric-schmidt/

7. Focus on Success Camp
In the world of entrepreneurship I think the
most dangerous lie we tell ourselves is “I’ve
learned more from my failures than my
successes.” It’s simply not true.
Joe Kraus, Google Ventures
http://joekraus.com/the-lies-we-tell-ourselves

8. My Journey

11. •
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4 Founders
7 Employees
$120k raised

12. •
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2 Founders - 1 quit, 1 was fired
<1 Months runway

13. •
Let go of team in Korea except for 2
engineers. Both engineers eventually quit
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Raised money from family to float the
company
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$80K in personal credit card debt and 2
weeks from not making rent

15. Lessons Learned

16. Stop comparing yourself to other
people (no one is perfect)
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Manage your highs and lows
(focus on recovery speed)
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WHY do I want to keep going?

17. Thanks!
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Remember the bad times, it gives you perspective
when you overcome them
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Slides will be available on www.slideshare.com/
liveink
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Reach me at www.twitter.com/liveink and “liveink”
on www.messageme.com

18. Questions?
“The art of a relationship is all in the appreciation.”
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“It could be better, but it’s good enough.”