Dealing with failure — 10 from Steve Poland

One of the topics I wind up talking about a lot is dealing with failure. I think it is very important that we all learn how to deal with failure. Years ago, I had no idea how to learn from the failures and mistakes and wound up repeating them shortly after the failure occured. Then I found methods of dealing with the failures so that they can become successes.

It is easy to cry, pound the desk, curse, scream, jump out a window, drink, gamble, etc. when you fail. It is much more difficult to analyze the failure, note the points and then grow and learn. Mastering your failures will help your startup web app grow faster and become more successful.

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some of my failures and how I dealt with them. The good ways and the bad ways. One of the people I met at SXSW was Steve Poland. Steve writes for several blogs including TechCrunch and his own site at TechquilaShots. I enjoyed speaking with him and you can tell from the first minute that he really knows what he is doing with regards to startups and VC.

Steve has a post on TS about his top 10 failures. It is well worth the read. Some of the notes include:

• Don’t go into business with friends
• Don’t start a business without steady income. You’re most likely NOT going to become a millionaire from your idea, so don’t assume you will be — and thus, don’t get yourself in heaps of debt; particularly high-interest credit card debt.
• Don’t build everything at once — get something out there.

Please feel free to post your failures and learnings. If you would prefer to create a full post on CN (vs. a comment), just drop me a line.