Nine Lives.
I don't take much notice of statistics.
In a previous life I was an accountant - and trust me, it was one of the most "creative" jobs I ever had. (One boss used to tell me the profit number he needed to make his bonus that year, and "work back from there". Audit time was VERY stressful).
So I know that numbers DO INDEED lie.
The other day, I heard a statistic that made me stop and think.
Surely THAT can't be true?
Apparently, entrepreneurs start, on average, NINE businesses before one succeeds.
Just for kicks, I sat down with my serial entrepreneurial husband, and we listed all the business start-ups we had been involved in - and I can tell you that between us, the number wasn't nine.
Oh no. It was many more than that.
Holy fuck. What does that say about us? Are we "entrepreneurial junkies", addicted to the thrill of start-ups? Have we been really, really unlucky?
Or are we just really shit at business?
We delved further.
In fairness, two of the businesses had been sold (at a profit), and a couple were reincarnations of the same thing, so they didn't really count.
But for both of us, there were a handful of ventures that were epic failures.
Here's the interesting thing. All the failures (and most of those which were heading for failure, but we had enough foresight to leap off before we careened into the abyss) had much in common.
The mistakes, missteps, wrong turns and debilitating decisions were similar in every case.
The biggest error of all, was that we had never done this business autopsy before.
Most of the time, we had just turned our attention on the next 'shiny object", assumed we had "learned from the experience" and carried merrily along - and then committed the same sins over again
J RR Tolkien said "the burned hand teaches best".
Er.....oh.
We, like many other creative entrepreneurs, keep jamming our hands back in the fire. But unfortunately the fire burns more than our hands - usually it takes our bank balances, our sanity and sometimes, our relationships too. Leaves them all in ashes.
In this blog, I want to share with you some of the flops, failures, and fuck ups - that led to OUR scorched hands.
So that YOU, whilst having a giggle at our expense, may avoid them.
So welcome!
Love, Jackie xx
In a previous life I was an accountant - and trust me, it was one of the most "creative" jobs I ever had. (One boss used to tell me the profit number he needed to make his bonus that year, and "work back from there". Audit time was VERY stressful).
So I know that numbers DO INDEED lie.
The other day, I heard a statistic that made me stop and think.
Surely THAT can't be true?
Apparently, entrepreneurs start, on average, NINE businesses before one succeeds.
Just for kicks, I sat down with my serial entrepreneurial husband, and we listed all the business start-ups we had been involved in - and I can tell you that between us, the number wasn't nine.
Oh no. It was many more than that.
Holy fuck. What does that say about us? Are we "entrepreneurial junkies", addicted to the thrill of start-ups? Have we been really, really unlucky?
Or are we just really shit at business?
We delved further.
In fairness, two of the businesses had been sold (at a profit), and a couple were reincarnations of the same thing, so they didn't really count.
But for both of us, there were a handful of ventures that were epic failures.
Here's the interesting thing. All the failures (and most of those which were heading for failure, but we had enough foresight to leap off before we careened into the abyss) had much in common.
The mistakes, missteps, wrong turns and debilitating decisions were similar in every case.
The biggest error of all, was that we had never done this business autopsy before.
Most of the time, we had just turned our attention on the next 'shiny object", assumed we had "learned from the experience" and carried merrily along - and then committed the same sins over again
J RR Tolkien said "the burned hand teaches best".
Er.....oh.
We, like many other creative entrepreneurs, keep jamming our hands back in the fire. But unfortunately the fire burns more than our hands - usually it takes our bank balances, our sanity and sometimes, our relationships too. Leaves them all in ashes.
In this blog, I want to share with you some of the flops, failures, and fuck ups - that led to OUR scorched hands.
So that YOU, whilst having a giggle at our expense, may avoid them.
So welcome!
Love, Jackie xx
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