What do people usually do after they run a failed startup?

This morning’s riff is an answer to a Quora question, and while Roger Ehrenberg gave a rich answer*, it felt good to contribute my own perspective.

I can describe my personal experience and comment on the experiences of those I’ve read about.

After Victus Media failed to lock onto a product with traction both my cofounder and I let it go. We iterated on several concepts between October 2009 (I started with an idea late summer 2009) and mid 2010 (for more detail visit http://victusmedia.com).

We were unfunded and did all design and development on our own dollar so there were no financial partners that we had to work with on shutting down the company, or employees that we had to let go. It was an incredible learning experience, and I’ve never felt that surge of motivation before while working for other companies.

I’m currently working part time at my first career (simulations/algorithm engineer) to pay the bills while I continue to learn and practice developing side projects at nights and days off. I tried applying to a couple dozen startups in NYC, but I don’t have the specialized experience they were looking for. My plan is to experiment with different ideas, learn the required technology, and explore new market opportunities. The criteria for me to invest heavily in new projects is having adequate resources^ to build an alpha product which resonates strongly with folks that try it out.

In regards to other entrepreneurs, nearly every successful founder has a trail of failed ventures behind them. With each effort they learn or continue to fail. I have great respect for the generous folks that document why they believed their startup failed. The cause of failure can almost always be traced back to failing to listen to your target audience, failing to lead the market through tough design decisions, or failing to execute fast enough.

The founders I’ve met and interact with regularly are hard wired to excel in the ill defined and open space of startups. Sure they could take a specialized job working for another company, but their skill sets and more importantly their passion will always be better fueled by working on a business they have a vested interest in and influence over.

Notes:
*= My favorite quote from Roger’s answer

Don’t let failure color your perceptions of yourself. Take failure as a valuable learning experience that is merely a step on the road to future success. Whether you do another start-up or not isn’t the point; it’s to use the invaluable data you’ve collected about how businesses work – or don’t work – that you can take with you for the rest of your working life

^= available resources consist my own coding time, operating partners and team

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  • http://blog.botfu.com Kevin Marshall

    There’s a reason childhood movie stars often grow up to be a mess…getting a win before you’ve ever suffered a loss doesn’t help you to grow or learn much…and it certainly doesn’t get you to appreciate the luck that was involved. In fact it lulls you into thinking that it will always be that easy and when it’s not, you are often unprepared to handle reality.

    In almost all biographies I’ve read of the great men and women throughout history…they all suffered, they all struggled first…but they did not let it beat them (for too long).

    If you ever want to lose your fear of fighting…get knocked out…once you recover, you’ll realize that’s about the worst thing that can happen…and it probably wasn’t as bad as you imagined it might be.

  • http://www.jawaya.com Charlie Crystle

    insightful–thanks for this post

  • http://www.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    Keep at it Mark. You’ve got an entrepreneur’s mind at heart and in your belly.
    Find the right thing, and you will do it again with success, I’m sure of it.

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  • http://www.skepticgeek.com Mahendra

    Always admire your spirit, Mark. Keep at it, and one day the light will shine.

  • FAKE GRIMLOCK

    WIN NOT ABOUT NEVER FALL DOWN. WIN ABOUT ALWAYS GET BACK UP.

  • anonymous coward

    Personally I started working for someone else, who appreciated the dedication and no-nonsense, totally results-focused, engaging 100% on/off style that this brought to their own business. I asked challenging questions, enjoyed learning about new business and technical areas, and was later relocated with visa support to the US and given stock options. Life, it seems, rewards the energised. Whether you are running the show or not is not really the point: it’s the quality of life along the way that’s really important.

  • http://david-noel.com David Noël

    It took me months to translate the learning experience from journey #1 into something productive I could use for journey #2. It was a natural process (still is) and I always knew that what I had learned before was something invaluable I’d be able to use later. Keep going, Mark!

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Thanks David. I wasn’t very productive in later 2010, better to label that time recovery ;) .

    I’m feeling much more energized and focused now. The toughest part is filtering out all the things I could do, from what I need to do. Culling my open ended side project interests and reducing them to activities which bring me closer to a functional business.

    I came across a great post by Giff Constable about pre-product market fit chock full of helpful tips. My favorite was the hamster wheel web site that is manually driven.

  • http://david-noel.com David Noël

    Have a link for that? Need to add some fuel to my Instpaper for the flight across the pond :)

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Sure thing, odd that it isn’t highlighted by default but if you mouse over Giff Constable it’s there.

  • http://david-noel.com David Noël

    Ah great thanks! Read and replied via Disqus email

  • http://www.taylordavidson.com Taylor Davidson

    Thanks for the pointer to my post, Mark. I’ve been through a couple of those journeys between careers myself, and I know firsthand that it can be a tough transition. Recently moved to NYC, the next step of my own transition :)

  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Appreciate the sentiment Taylor, have an incredible “transition” :)