Entrepreneurship is a high-risk, high-reward field with multiple failing ventures for every one that succeeds. Young ventures fail for many reasons, sometimes as the result of decisions made by the founders and sometimes due to unforeseen factors like new market entrants or black swan events like a global pandemic. For many reasons, new venture creation remains a risky business and venture failure is a regular occurrence. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos summarized this well when he noted, “Failure and invention are inseparable twins.”
We typically see and celebrate entrepreneur successes. After all, such wins deserve community attention and it’s important to celebrate and promote them when they happen in order to drive more venture creation locally. Failures, on the other hand, are much less visible as struggling ventures quietly cease operations and their employees and founders begin looking for new work opportunities. After all, who wants to talk about failures or focus on defeats?
However, it’s at this point that communities have an opportunity to strengthen their entrepreneurial culture by taking notice of founders whose ventures have failed and supporting them during their transition. In this context, support can come in many forms. One example is for peer entrepreneurs to gather to toast the leadership team and encourage them as they look for what’s next. Another is when entrepreneur support organizations call on the founders to learn about their situation and help with strategic connections and other forms of assistance to entice them to remain in the area. After all, these experienced entrepreneurs bring a unique, informed perspective to their work and can be critical leadership additions to existing ventures and/or as founders of future companies.
It’s easy and fun to celebrate successes. It’s also important that we support entrepreneurs when they fail, helping them dust off the challenges of ventures past so that they stay in the area and help create the next big thing.
helping them dust off the challenges of ventures past so that they stay in the area and help create the next big thing. Ironically, it’s how we handle failures that may ultimately determine our level of success as an entrepreneurial community.
John Moore is a principal with Momenteum Strategies, an Upstate-based consulting firm specializing in helping communities and their economic development organizations build thriving, impactful innovation ecosystems.
