

Why have I failed? - bcambel
http://blog.bahadir.io/posts/failed-entrepreneur.html

======
calinet6
Reading his backstory, I think it was because he quit his job to become an
entrepreneur.

He just put the cart before the horse, that's all. Find a good company, find a
good project, work on it. When you see a true market for something, then and
only then should you go after it.

Don't just be an entrepreneur because you think it's what you want to do—it's
not about you, it's about the market and the value you can provide to it.

~~~
wtvanhest
_> Don't just be an entrepreneur because you think it's what you want to do-
it's not about you, it's about the market and the value you can provide to
it._

This should be considered a powerful quote that everyone should live by.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Exactly, in fairness I think the original author has figured this out, but its
an important litmus test.

If you want to be an entrepreneur you first need to discover a problem you are
passionate about fixing, and you enjoy working on. You will need that to carry
you through the hard work. Finding that is best done by working for someone
else and spending your personal time reading, networking, and listening. While
you are working for someone else, hone those skills that make you a better
employee, and you can use as an entrepreneur, get better at writing code,
develop tools to communicate clearly, think through assignments and figure out
what needs to be done to complete them. All great skills.

------
Peroni
_did not listen people very well. I've heard them but did not actually listen.
I kept on talking and talking._

I couldn't care less if you're some guy with a fancy idea in his head with no
clue on how to do anything about it or if you're Paul Graham himself, as soon
as you stop listening to what others have to say, you're failing.

My father rarely had anything insightful to say but one thing he did say that
really stuck with me was "As soon as you believe you're the smartest man in
the room, you're in the wrong room". His point being that you should never
stop learning from others and always seek out opinions of those more
experienced or simply those with alternative experience to your own.

~~~
santaragolabs
edit: clarification

I wholeheartedly agree with you; some personal other side of the story
regarding the link in OP's article.

Lack of listening? That's not my experience with Bado. I know him in real life
and I've worked together with him at a very young company/startup right when
he came from Turkey to the Netherlands. That was a blast, both on a
professional and a personal level. I also got to experience the Turkish
hospitality when I had to work for three weeks in beautiful Istanbul myself.
After both of us moving on to greener pastures we kind of lost contact though.

Last time I met him (and another former co-worker) was several months ago in
Amsterdam; we had a great night; much booze was had and we bounced around from
pub to bar to nightclub. But we also bounced back and forth all these ideas on
entrepreneurship and all that. I remember telling him I was worried that he
had a lot on his plate and that especially with his potential visa problems he
was quite vulnerable.

But then again; you shouldn't take everyone's advice either. If Larry and
Sergey had done that they wouldn't have started a search engine either ("too
hard; Yahoo is king already"). But carefully weighing outside's viewpoints is
a good idea.

In my personal experience Bado never acted like the smartest man in the room;
he was always willing to learn and exchange books/ideas with me. But when
starting to go down one road with your company one might close itself off a
bit though. Sometimes it does pays to be stubborn though :)

~~~
Peroni
Don't get me wrong, my statement wasn't directed at Bado specifically. It was
more of a general point aimed at those who feel they have little to learn from
others.

 _But then again; you shouldn't take everyone's advice either._

You're right but again, that wasn't my point. My point is you should always
listen. Sometimes you can learn more from other peoples mistakes (even if they
don't consider it a mistake) than their successes.

~~~
santaragolabs
Yeah, I didn't even interpret your statement as to mean that. Edited and
hopefully clarified my post now.

------
jere
Wow, that's some humility. You are less of a fool than when you started. Based
on what I've been reading lately a few things stick out above all others:

>did not look for a market very well

>did not try to sell the product, I've just build it

>my job is not programming. My job is delivering value using programming

Because, really, would the project have been a success with more Backbone?

------
michelleclsun
Hi bcambel, big congrats to your courage and honesty - one of the biggest
learning for me of being an entrepreneur is the humility.

Just a thought, you might want to think of yourself as "an entrepreneur that
failed _once_ " rather than "a failed entrepreneur". In psychology that makes
a big difference in how we label ourselves. Relate the failure to an incident
in our lives, rather than an attribute that we belong to.

Also, just curious, what made you decide to give up? What are your plans now?
All the best.

------
edw519
Funny, had you been more successful (by any definition), most of these
comments would still be true. Successful people make many of the same mistakes
you're citing here.

I hate to paraphrase and respond to your entire post, but it was such an
interesting one, so here goes...

 _did not take care myself; emotionally and physically_

Yes! This must always be #1. As Vince Lombardi said, "Fatigue makes cowards of
us all." If you don't have your health, nothing else matters.

 _did not listen people very well. I've heard them but did not actually
listen. I kept on talking and talking._

Now you know. But you must still beware: don't listen to everyone equally. You
must learn to distinguish good feedback from bad.

 _being an expat and entrepreneur is somewhat crazy when you know you're going
to have visa problems. Too much instability in one man's life drains too much
energy._

Naaa. If you wait until conditions are better, you'll wait forever. Almost
always, the best time to do something is "now".

 _did not use my time wisely_

Hardly anyone else does either.

 _tried to do too much_

Don't we all?

 _should be less harsh on myself and others_

This should always be the case. You must be brutally honest with yourself and
others, but "harsh"? I don't think so.

 _was(am) stubborn when I should not be_

This works both ways. Many of my biggest successes were the result of my
stubbornness, when I was right and conventional wisdom and the feedback of
others would have held me back. The secret is knowing when to be stubborn and
when to go along.

 _was inconsistent ( ran ~90km in June '12 then in the last 6 months I only
ran 30km )_

Just about everything follows sinusoidal curves. Nature isn't very consistent.
You probably won't be either.

 _did not ask for help_

Now you know. But optimizing when, where, and from whom to ask for help is
just as important as knowing that you must every once in a while.

 _never did true problem description. Should have write it down_

Good idea. But don't forget that it can evolve. You may have to rewrite it
every now and then.

 _should have connected with more people. Relationships matter a lot._

The _right_ relationships matter a lot. The wrong ones are worse than none at
all.

 _did not plan ahead the business_

Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes the best journeys are taken one step at a time in
what you think is the right direction. Don't kill yourself over a "plan" that
you may never have been able to forsee anyway. Even in business, evolution is
sometimes more important than driving home the plan.

 _do not write a 100 page business plan does not mean don't write it at all_

Nice thought. A one pager may have helped you maintain focus on your true
north.

 _started working on other ideas and lost focus when business needed the most_

Yea, a common problem. I guess the first step in solving it is recognizing you
have it. Good for you.

 _should take the money when a beta user offered to pay_

Maybe, maybe not. That could have really jump started the project. It also
could have derailed it.

 _should have postpone opening company till we have a paying customer base._

Usually a very good idea. A good guideline, but not a rule.

 _should have asked money from people_

Maybe, maybe not. Same answer as your beta user.

 _rather than having a $400 Amazon EC2 instance, €30 p/m server was enough._

Good thought. Keep expenses low! Runway matters.

 _scalability problems should be solved when there are scalability problems._

That's easy to say now, but at the time you're building, it's often really
hard to tell what the scalability issues might be. Go easy on yourself here.

 _have stuck in maker's obsession_

That's a good thing, I think. We need _more_ obsessed makers, not less.

 _wrote too much code. 30% became immediately unnecessary_

This is always true. The problem is that while you're building, you rarely
know _which 30%_ will become unnecessary. As John Wanamaker said, "Half the
money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which
half."

 _did not prioritize what I should be working next_

Absolutely! This is the second most important thing you said (after taking
better care of yourself). Your To Do List only needs one item. Your most
important job is making sure it's the right item.

 _should have learnt Celery before_

Naaa. I've always believed that building the right thing will naturally guide
you to learning the appropriate tools. A million "should haves" don't make any
difference now.

 _should have learnt Flask before_

See "Celery" response above.

 _more Backbone less spagetti JS._

You should _never_ write spagetti in any language! Find a way to solve that
problem before you ever write another line of code.

 _less code, less code, less code._

Refactoring is necessary but not sufficient. Again, go easy on your self.

 _my job is not programming. My job is delivering value using programming._

Semantics.

 _should release the app much more earlier_

Maybe, maybe not. You can release too early and sabatoge the entire endeavor.
This is another general guideline, never a rule.

 _should have fixed the showstopper bug and email users a.s.a.p. to say that
we're sorry. ( Some users registered and tried the app when they shouldn't but
since I left the Google login open, they've registered and saw a non-working
app )_

Yes. The customer almost always comes first and deserves their fair share of
your service and respect.

 _did not look for a market very well_

Are you solving a problem that needs to be solved? You must be.

 _did not able to explain the product in simple terms_

Great point. This is usually trickier than it seems and is an absolute must.

 _did not try to sell the product, I've just build it_

Another tricky point, but a very good one.

 _kept 600 people waiting for a demo while having a product_

Not sure what this means, but it doesn't sound good. Live and learn.

 _should have integrated payment gateway much more earlier_

Now you know.

 _Facebook & Twitter do not have quality content_

So what? You must learn to focus on issues, not details. Most of your feedback
here sounds like issues. This sounds like a meaningless detail.

 _I am a fool. A big one._

No, you're not and I have proof: A fool could have never written such an
interesting post. Thanks for sharing. I'm sure this has helped others.

~~~
timwiseman
A beautiful comment and I think you add a lot of good thoughts. I must
respectfully disagree with one point though: "my job is not programming. My
job is delivering value using programming.

Semantics."

I'm not sure. More than once I have gotten lost adding features no one wanted
because the process of doing it interested me, or I spent hours optimizing a
routine because I just knew it could be improved even when what my users
wanted was a new feature and the performance was acceptable.

When time is limited, focus on adding value through programming, not
programming for its own sake or because the problem is interesting.

------
RyanZAG
"... Cemal started to convince me that Cashgenius is a really hard way to go.
We have also spoken wtih a couple of prospects and realized that they are not
using computer to manage their financial situation. I was in a situation where
I wasted again my resources for a product where no customer exists to start up
the engines of my business. My game plan was gone. I was falling apart."

Feels like this is as big an issue as any - you were working on a product you
believed in, but when it became clear the product wouldn't work exactly how
you wanted, you dumped the whole thing in the trash and went to chase the soul
crushing social media wave. Better plan may have been to spend more time
finding out how you could change Cashgenius to fit to a potential market?

I could be wrong here, but pivoting a product is nearly always better than
trashing it at the first sign of difficulty and chasing the new hot fashion.

------
plinkplonk
Is there some kind of context? What did he fail _at_?

~~~
bcambel
<http://blog.bahadir.io/posts/story.html>

------
rjhackin
"Should take the money when a beta user offered to pay"

Not sure about this point. Why would we take money if we knew the product is
not in a working condition. And what if, the product doesn't get to a stage
where we feel the fee justifies.

~~~
wpietri
I get your feelings here, and I think they say good things about you. But
until you take money, you aren't running a business. What with business cards,
a nice website, and an office, it might look like a business, but it's just an
expensive fantasy.

Money is proof that your customers find you valuable. If you are really
worried that the money is more an expression of faith and that you might not
earn it, then don't recognize the revenue. Keep the money separate so you can
give it back if things don't work out. But take the money. And then ask other
people for money.

Avoiding taking money is basically avoiding finding out whether or not you've
got something good. Your answer to that question is almost irrelevant. It's
your potential customers that you should be listening to. One of the truest
answers they will give you is their first check. (Still truer ones are
_regular_ checks and referrals to friends.) So take the money.

------
amix
I don't think you have failed. I think your strategy has failed. Maybe a
better strategy would have been to still have your job (part-time?) and still
have a visa and then use the rest of the time to create your product. You
might use a lot more time, but the great thing is that you always have
something to fall back to (the chance of failure is huge when doing startups
so it's good to have some kind of safety net). When/if your product starts to
take off then you can then quit your job and apply for a entrepreneurship
visa. I think it's a much more sane strategy than risking everything.

------
tinco
> do not write a 100 page business plan does not mean don't write it at all

Who advices against a 100 page business plan? Is there something wrong with
it? (besides spending too much time on planning?) if you could write 100 pages
about your domain, wouldn't that be a good thing?

As a foreigner looking at the US I sometimes get the feeling a lot of SV
startups don't work with a business plan at all, is that customary?

Shouldn't any startup at least make an 8 section business plan? (summary,
idea, team, marketing, business system / organization, schedule, risks,
finance).

~~~
ntkachov
The idea, from what I understand, is that a 100 page business plan is
ultimately wasted time as a good chunk of that will change very quickly. So
rather than writing 100 pages of, what will inevitably become obsolete, you
should write a shorter one and focus on actually creating the business.

~~~
tinco
Ofcourse the plan itself might not be the paper it is written on. But I think
there is a lot of value to be had from having all your thoughts about what you
are going to do written down at least once. There is so much to be thought
about when starting a venture. I get the feeling some startups just deal with
every problem when it hits them in the face, instead of anticipating and
carefully maneuvering?

------
languagehacker
If part of your short list of failures legitimately includes not knowing not
one but two separate MVC frameworks, then your _actual_ short list of failures
is, "Set out on a project without any concept of requirements or technical
implementation," and that right there is reason enough.

------
outside1234
You have succeeded by merely trying.

When I look back at my "failed" companies, I see all of the experiences I
needed for my current company and past jobs.

There are no failures in the startup world if you took good experiences away
from it. It wasn't a failure, it was training.

------
BrianPetro
Aren't we all one low point away from writing something like this?

Thanks for your openness!

------
timonv
Failing happens and is a good thing. Don't forget to look at the bright side.
Learning rocks.

------
marshray
> Scalability problems should be solved when there are scalability problems.

Preferably, before!

> I am a fool. A big one.

Nah, you're awesome. That's way better than all the dumb and pointless ways
I've failed. Keep it up.

------
wiradikusuma
dang, a lot of what he wrote resonate with me. the difference is, i've been
meaning to ASK people here in HN for some advice regarding my project (i don't
dare to call it startup yet), but been deferring it since i haven't translated
my website in english.

if i might add, for the Programming part: don't develop your startup with cool
tech/language/framework you just heard yesterday. it's fun, but you'll get
sidetracked big time.

~~~
toumhi
Hey man, I've already written blog posts in english about a project in french,
and people here on HN were really enthusiastic to share their comments, and I
learnt a lot from it - so I think you've got nothing to lose. You don't need
to translate your whole website in english, and you know, people can use
google translate (not sure how it works for Bahasa Indonesia though ;-) )

~~~
wiradikusuma
hey tommy! thanks for the encouragement, let me clean some stuff first, expect
to see my Show HN soon! i'm glad to be part of this community.

------
mgkimsal
"I _knew_ everything"

I can't tell if this is serious, or if it was intended as some self-
deprecation or something. Obviously the person knows they didn't know
everything. But I can't tell by the writing if it's earnest or sarcastic.

~~~
chrisb
Given the context, it's pretty clear that he _thought_ he knew everything at
the time, but now realises he didn't.

One of life's more painful, but essential, lessons.

~~~
mgkimsal
I _thought_ it was clear, then I just wasn't sure.

------
mahyarm
So how much did this tuition cost you?

------
inaworldofideas
greatly put: my job is not programming. My job is delivering value using
programming.

------
QuantumGuy
You didn't fail you learned

------
tlarkworthy
well at least you have came out significantly wiser

------
m00dy
welcome to club hacı :)

------
ozuolmez
but know you know.!

