

To The Lone Entrepreneur: Make Your Failure Public - flicea
http://www.cozysystems.com/blog/?p=74

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patio11
I think the title is a needlessly negative frame wrapped around a very good
idea: let people know what you're working on. It helps promote a sense of
responsibility about the work before you have, e.g., a finished product or
customers. (After you have a couple dozen people who paid you money and would
be left in the lurch if you quit, that tends to be all the motivation to keep
going you need. Well, for me anyhow.)

If you've told your friends and family what you're working on, if your project
should die you will have people asking you "Hey, whatever happened to...",
which will motivate you to not die. For similar reasons, I recommend having a
blog, as if you didn't have enough reasons to have a business blog already.

You don't even have to do a launch party -- I just told my dad. He told me my
idea was, ahem, crazy and that I should go get a job at Google. (Best bad
advice _ever_ in terms of motivating me.)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_I just told my dad. He told me my idea was, ahem, crazy and that I should go
get a job at Google._

My step-dad is 90 and has done a lot of cool stuff. I admire the heck out of
him. He's still sharp and has great advice about everything else.

But I've found with startups and technology consulting? I'm better off doing
the exact opposite of whatever he says. It's like the world he grew up in had
exactly the opposite paradigms from the world he is in now.

So with friendships and sharing comes a lot of unspoken assumptions. Be sure
the people you share with or have the party with have some idea of how
technology businesses work (or are willing to listen to you). Otherwise you
could either get bad "quit now and do something productive" advice , or worse
yet, blanket acceptance without an honest critique. After all, partners are
also there to tell you that you're going off the rails.

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Empact
I didn't throw a launch party, but I have been incrementally building my
latest project (<http://votereports.org/>) completely in the open, starting
from the first weekend it was started and launched (which happened to be a
Startup Weekend event).

I'm about 2 months in now, and while I'll need another 2 or 3 before I'm ready
to promote it, just having it out there has been an excellent motivator, for
one simple reason:

When I talk about the site to someone new, rather than just explain the idea
of the thing I'm working on I have to also tell them that it's up on the web.
And when I do that, given its current state I have to follow with a whole
litany of cautionary notes to the effect of: it's not done yet.

So instead of basking in the glow of the nobility of my not-yet-public
project, for now and until it's ready to go, I'm be making well-justified
apologies every time it comes up.

I'm looking forward to not needing to make those apologies, and working in
part to see that happen. These uncomfortable moments complement my longer-term
vision for the project, as the immediate, recurring motivation I need to
complement the that farther-out achievement of completion.

So I agree, as the submitter says: Make your "Failure" Public.

 _edit_ : And in the spirit of what's above, you should know that the site's
visual design has been the same since the first weekend, and will be totally
revamped sometime in the near future.

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akadien
As a lone entrepreneur in a city that is very un-entrepreneurial (even anti-
entrepreneurial in some ways), I think this is a good idea assuming you invite
the right people to the launch party. You need people who will celebrate your
risk-taking adventure with you as well as be there in a positive way when
things get very hard or if it ultimately fails.

Although I know the title is denigrating, it actually is good advice. My first
effort failed miserably, causing me to slink back to a nine-to-fiver I hate.
Once I came to terms with why I had failed the first time and shared those
deeply personal things with others, I find my second time around is much
clearer and focused. And those who are informed and care help to remind me of
what not to do as much as what to do. In some ways, they are like silent co-
founders.

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MrSafe
Sharing my startup with my friends and family somehow inspired a sense of
legitimacy in me. They wished me luck and it resulted in some unexpected
networking.

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megamark16
I'm in the exact same boat, sans the party. Lone entrepreneur building a few
projects, with a few live and the big one not quite ready for people to start
using it yet. I have told people about my projects but so far I haven't really
thrown myself out there. I like your title because it encourages us to take a
risk, and to not fear failure, but to face it head on, and hopefully avoid it
in the end.

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alanthonyc
That is a very simple, yet great, idea. I'm definitely doing this, something
to look forward to.

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known
I always _celebrated_ my failures.

