Are you falling in love with failure? Here's the 'Plot Twist' before your next move!
When the hustle crashes harder than the laptop.
Ever since the failure of my first business, selling oysters, I have been repeating my mistakes. You heard me correctly, but just in case is any doubt, let me repeat that "I have been repeating my mistakes". I'm a slow learner.
The oysters were a particular painful lesson. I had spent two weeks in Merimbula in southern New South Wales working on my godfather’s building sites. I was 15, and having been forced to work (yes, forced), from an early age, knew my way around a building site and was pretty handy with tools and shovels.
At the end of the two weeks, we were due to be paid. One of the other kids working there, wanted to be paid in oysters, which he would take back to Melbourne and sell to his parents, friends, at the Beau Morris yacht club. He has done this before, and it would result in him doubling his wages.
Being entrepreneurial, and a little bit greedy, I can see the value in this and demanded to be paid in oysters as well. This other kid said to me, "Are you sure you can sell them?”. “I know people who will buy them off me", I answered. Although no one who would beeps and buy them came readily to mind, (and in fact I had never eaten an oyster in my life) I insisted it would be fine.
Falling In Love with the Idea how to sell your Oysters
Now there were a few flaws in my thinking:
I had never eaten an oyster and didn't really know what they were
I didn't know anybody who ate oysters
St. Albans is a long way from Beaumaris - while it is only about one hour's drive and 2.5 hours on public transport, it's also on the opposite side of the city (a completely different demographic, about five socio-economic levels higher, in white, upwardly mobile, middle-class, as opposed to recently arrived migrants who don't want to spend their limited disposable income on a luxury item like oysters)
Also, I was 15, did not have a car, and had no way to get the oysters from my home, anywhere near a silver spoon, or the sort of mouths who eats them
But I've never been one to let reality get in the way of a good story (even when I later became a journalist).
We got back to Melbourne, my parents picked me up at the bus stop and I duly announced that I had 12 dozen oysters for sale. After a day or so, and realizing the oysters weren't automatically selling themselves, I got on the phone and rang a number of restaurants to see if they would take them. I did find one that would, but they wanted them 'cleaned'.
Now, not understanding what this meant, I duly grabbed my mother’s laundry brush and began scrubbing the shells. It was a difficult and disheartening task. Once I scraped enough skin off my hands, I gave up. The oysters sat there for a couple of days before they began to smell (like, well, dead oysters and I threw them away). I had worked for two weeks for nothing.
Like many entrepreneurs, I fell in love with an idea (well, I fall in love with my ideas), and like a parent with a recalcitrant child, I cannot believe why everyone else in the world doesn't also love my idea. When the world doesn't love it, I simply assume they haven't understood its true beauty. So, I continue to find ways to sell my oysters/latest idea/product, eventually giving up but concluding that that the problem was execution, and that the world really wants my new idea/product – they just don't know about it.
Finally, though I think I have come to understand that it doesn't matter how good the idea/product is, if no one buys it it's a commercial failure. Other people have to see the commercial value, and the value has to be sufficient for them to spend money on your oysters/ideas/product. The purpose of good execution is simply to prove that: 1) others value the product as much as you or 2) others do not value the product as much as you.
The crucial questions to ask yourself are:
Is there a market need for this idea/product/solution/oyster?
If there is, does your idea/product/solution/voice and meet that market need?
The market need back in St Albans was affordable food which reflected the local demographic (Germans, Greeks, and Maltese - ie. German sausages, fish and chips and pastizi)
There are numerous reasons why your new idea/product will fail, some of which are:
it isn't very good idea/product
the problem. It sets out to solve doesn't really exist, or no one is really willing to pay for it (I will cover this in other blogs)
you execute poorly (I will also cover this in other blogs)
In start-ups, the reason to execute well is not to sell more product, so much as to prove whether your concept works. If you don't sell your idea well (i.e. people know about it, and they can easily get it) then will never be able to tell whether it's a problem of access to your products/ideas/solutions/oyster, or the product/ideas/solutions/oyster itself (otherwise known as proof of concept).
Going back to my oysters, it probably would have been a good idea to test my theory out first - " is there is demand for oysters in St Albans?", by asking a few people "would you buy a dozen oysters, and how much would you pay for them?". This is called a minimum viable prototype (MVP). You don't really need oysters to do this. But I was too in love with the idea of doubling my salary to test my theory first - after all, why let reality get in the way of a good idea?
The same principle applies anything you do i.e.
starting a new relationship - are you in love with the ideal of the person
ending a relationship - are you in love with the freedom
starting a new job - you can only see the upside, this point
taking on a new project
etc
Before you jump all in - perhaps take a moment to do a little bit of “downside analysis”
While it might all look good - test out your theory first.
date them for a year before getting married
talk to someone else who’s had the same job
consider what you’ll if the project doesn’t work out
If you’d like a bit of coaching or facilitation around effectively weighing up your next move – get in touch.