If you're starting a new company or startup and you're motivated, then you're on the right track. However, you are missing one key element in this whole motivation that you're experiencing: you need to be motivated to fail.
Now, this sounds a little bit gloomy. But it's the only way you can advance later on. You need to understand and write this sentence somewhere: it is okay to fail. It is preferable that you would fail. You need to fail to maintain your operations in the world of entrepreneurship.
Failure as Part of Success
Not a single person in this world has achieved success without experiencing failure. Everyone has failures and then tweaks the product to reach something more successful.
It's not a binary code of zero and one. It's much more complex than that. It's a chart that goes up and down, up and down. You find small successes, you find small failures; there is no such thing as a big fail.
Even if you’ve worked on a startup for over five years and it didn't eventually make enough money to sustain itself, that doesn't mean that this is a failure.
It is an experience that led to something. It might have benefited someone, and it might have benefited you more than anyone. Therefore, you shouldn't consider this a failure whatsoever.
The Mindset of an Entrepreneur
I always advise my entrepreneur clients to keep this in mind before they actually start asking for investments or growing their company. You're trying to grow your company, and you're going to give your 120%. However, there is a chance that this doesn't work out, which is absolutely okay.
Everyone in the world of entrepreneurship knows the risks involved in starting a company. Starting a company is similar to getting a foul in a football game. There is a chance that you would score, and there is also a chance that you would miss it.
But that doesn't mean the game is over whatsoever. The game ends when you blow the whistle; there isn't a referee.
Learning to Fail Properly
Keeping all of that in mind, you need to understand how to fail properly because there is a level of stubbornness that you don't want to reach. There is a level of stubbornness when it comes to an idea, and you're not excelling in this idea while circling around it for a very long time.
The market could be showing that it doesn't really want or need this product whatsoever. The keyword here is the market, not your friends, not that investor, and not your co-founders. It's the market.
People have told you straight that they don't want this product. This product is not what they want. You may try to iterate on the product a few times, but if it still fails to attract interest from the market, this is when you would consider it a failure and move on to something different. However, that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing.
Transforming Failure into a Positive Experience
Always think of failure in the world of entrepreneurship as a positive thing.
You've definitely learned from every thought that comes through your mind, every action that you take, every paper that you write, and every person that you talk to in the world of entrepreneurship.
Each of these experiences adds value to your entrepreneurial brain, which prepares the ecosystem in your mind for something more successful. Success and failure are relative. What isn't relative is working every single time you have the opportunity to do so.
If you wake up in the morning and work on something, that's a success.
If you wake up the next day and work on something, that's another success.
Keep on achieving small successes in a world filled with failures to ultimately achieve success.