What failure taught me

I’ll be honest: I went through a difficult period. Starting with the closing down of my business nearly a year ago, I then lost the employment of a company which also had to close its doors. I will spare you the details of the chain of events, some more unpleasant than others affecting my life as it was a game of Domino. Having said that, I have always maintained a positive attitude and I am very happy that it happened to me. These bad experiences made me stronger and I want you to share the essential of what I have learned throughout this ordeal.

Have the necessary expertise

Regardless of the company you want to start, make sure the founders have all the necessary expertise. The first mistake I have committed is to have launched a tech company without having any expertise in programming. My market knowledge that was also too limited. Now that I have improved my knowledge in these areas, if I had to repeat something similar, I would first take an online programming class in order to have the necessary basis to help myself build the foundations of my business. I also believe that it is essential to be able to speak all the languages your team uses to carry out its work without being necessarily a programmer. Same thing for the market in which you launch your business, you need to know everything that is happening, all the movements, all the competitors, all the technologies, its size, its potential, its focus, etc. Nothing can be missed, you must be the ultimate war machine ready to take on any adversity.

Understand the basics of financing a business

You don’t need to be an accountant to do the follow-up of your finances. However, any contractor must regularly take the time to plan its financial objectives, read the financial statements, understand them, compare, make up scenarios and plan again. Money and time are the nerve of the war. Every second you spend is important and you must be aware that any decision will have a financial impact in the short, medium and/or long-term. It is not a question here of being cheap and not spend but you must control your finances with ease and communicate with your partners, investors and your banker. Your finances have a history and it is the one of your business, try to be a poet who masters the language and communicates with a disarming ease.

Find your corporate mission

In order to obtain success with your business, it is essential that you have hands-on solutions to any problems bothering you deeply or personally. This will become your mission. The best example, in my opinion, is the company TOMS: "For each pair that you buy, TOMS will give a pair to a child in need. One for one." The goal of TOMS shoes is to give shoes to children who need it anywhere the world, especially in Argentina, Ethiopia and more. Your mission does not need to be as virtuous, but it should give you the necessary motivation to continue to work hard each and every day of your life. All decisions will be easier to take with this as a background mission for which you are ready to sacrifice everything you have. The day you will find yourself facing a wall more gigantic than the previous one and that for a moment you will be tempted to give it all up, it is your mission that will give you the strength to go on.

Know your exit strategy

Everything that has a beginning has a purpose. Choose from the outset the final objective you would like to achieve with your business. Your vision is likely to change along the way. Because of the market that it will be wiser to sell it to a larger competitor at a certain point, or you might want to dominate the market until your death. Regardless of your intention, be lucid and think about it from the beginning.

Demonstrate diligence with the investors

It is very likely that sooner or later you will need money to attain another level. An investor is not a bank, it is not your friend, it is a man (or a group) who sees an opportunity with your company in its portfolio. Make sure that he already knows what he wants to do with your business as soon as it invests even just a minute of its time. Always do research on your investors’ past before going too far in the discussions. Martin Deslauriers has once said to me: if a person is unknown in my network, for me it is a red flag. So if you are not able to obtain information on the person who offers you money against shares in your company, my advice is to stop the discussions.

Never invest the money that we can’t lose

The difference between a professional player and a compulsive gambler is that the first does not play the money that he cannot lose. He will not use his credit card to buy chips or bet his paycheck as soon as he receives it. Never put your finances in danger, always stay in a comfort zone and always put money aside for the time where this will be less easy. Give yourself a reasonable paycheck, not less than what you need to live, but do not expect to live in great luxury from the beginning.

Stay lean and trim the fat

Hiring is the fun part of the growth. The lift of the financing is also an exciting experience. But stay away from debts and hurried hirings. For each dollar you spend, you must obtain twice as much. You must act as a professional athlete who is training 365 days a year and takes into account all his calorie intake. Each action makes a difference in his competitions because he also knows that all his competitors will do the same thing, otherwise they will be doing better. Therefore for you, every dollar and minute that you invest is important and it is essential that this habit becomes a second nature, you must do your best every day.

Have guts

Nobody has ever succeeded without trying and it is often necessary to try more than once. One day, when my associate, Awane Jones and I, had an exchange regarding a grant application, I stood by opinion that it was not possible, that we did not have the required criteria to apply. And he replied: those who dare my friend, shall obtain. And yes, I have to admit he was right. If we had not applied , it would have been 100% certain that we would not have been funded. Even if we had 95% chance of not having it, it was worth trying. The result, we obtain the grant.

A partner that is nice, two is even better, three is too much.

One day I attended a conference given my Daniel Drouet in which he had made up a scenario: Imagine that it is six o’clock in the morning and that it is your third night without sleep, You are in the office and it has been four months that you’ve been working 16 hours per day. If you lift up your eyes and look through the window, you see people who are going to work and they look happy. Then, you feel like you should give up. However, if next to you, there is your partner who is with you in this ultimate combat, it is very likely that he will give you the motivation to go on.

There is only thing that can be problematic with having only two co-founders; if one day you fall into a trap and that you are deeply in disagreement with the other, having a third partner to decide then become a unique asset. But in my opinion, more than three makes it is too difficult, taking into account all the different characters of each and every one. 

Conclusion

Not everyone can be a businessman. It takes a very unique nature to endure the Russian mountains of the growth of a business. Some people are best to find good ideas to put on the market quickly and sell quickly to skip to the next good idea. Others are excellent for growth, up to a certain size. Experience is worth everything. It is also a (legal) drug, which in my case, was worth a try. Good luck!