Your worst entrepreneurial failure... details please!

[bingnanxu]

Hello, So here is one of my many failure you can learn from

just couple month ago, I've decided to jump in to the real estate wholesaling business.

Why? Because making 5k - 20k on a deal by just fliping contract is just too EZ(well, i thought...)

So, watch loads of Youtube video, seeing success video after success video, listening to podcast everywhere, and will work hard getting my first deal, as the guru said, the first deal is the hardest, is like a snowball effect.

I learned everything to out compete my competition, i learned every strategy, brought courses for $1200(refunded already) which the information is already free on YouTube.

I cold called, list after list, hundred after hundred of cold call, direct mail and trying everything (spend loads of cash on RVM and Skiptracing).

Some night i even want to wake up at 5 am to cold call people in the East Coast to find some deals.(I lived in the West Coast)

then i got leads coming in, well, people dont want to sell their house below market value, dont want to do seller financing or lease option, i kept trying to close the deal by saying "what if you can't sell?"

so eventually they give up on me, stoped trusting me, since they think i am trying to low ball them on their house, which i did NOT, sometime i offer the BEST to cash out their house with barely any profit. They still do not want to believe me.

Again and Again i failed, i watch success video after video, trying the EXACT SAME STRATEGY AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!

And busting my head off, kept trying, kept pushing.

I did not know at that time, the people who did it, sharing out their success, and strategy. is BEHIND the scene SELLING Something, and After done my research, THEY MAKE MORE SELLING THE COURSE THEN THEY DO WHOLESALING!!!

A month goes BY... Nothin

Two Month go By... Nothin

Four Month go By... Nothin

In Those Four MONTH. I TRIED Almost anything that is even possible with Real Estate Wholesaling,
Seller Financing, lease option, cash offer, sandwich lease option, down payment arbitrage, ALMOST EVERYTHING From Cold Calling to writing HAND WRITE LETTER. And still NOTING

While on the side my etsy shop, which runs automatically earns more without even TOUCHing it....

Have i thought of giving up?

Yes.. So many time... but i dont want to be a loser, so i tried again and again

In the End,

Just like Albert Eienstain Said:
"
the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
"

So i picked up a book by MJ DeMarco, the millionaire fastlane , thank god he wrote the book, i really sincerely want to thank him, regarding the CENTS framework, the real estate wholesaling VIOLATED ALL 5 RULES

I Learned so many, which one of them is:::

In the end, you know who wins? Not the people that dig gold, but those who sell shovels and food...

Out of that couple winner that is on youtube, you will never hear that there are thousands that have failed, have been buried under the battle ground and unheard,

So listen to the failures,

As it block out the noise of success,

give you the true essence of what it takes, to become extraordinary.

Thanks @MJ DeMarco And Everyone on the forum

-Peace

 

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[rjrobbins2]

In 2004, I started an eBay business where I bought things from salvage auctions (new goods with damaged packaging or liquidation/overstock goods). I eventually found a source for Borders Bookstore overstock. I was getting entire pallets of books for $75. I was literally paying two cents per book. I spent more renting a truck to pick up than getting the books.

I listed all the auctions for 1 cent and priced shipping at $1 to $2 above the actual cost. Using media mail at USPS, it was still a fair rate. I got to where I was making $2k per month on these books. If they didn't sell, I took boxes to Half Price Books or donated some. Over time, eBay increased their fees, PayPal increased their fees, and eBay made booksellers limit their shipping prices. Sometimes, for heavier books, you took a loss on shipping. I ended up shutting down and donating the books because my profits kept dipping and I had other things going on in my life.

My failure is that if I had just done a little research, I could have moved over to Amazon and probably made more money. In my defense, I was working as a mortgage broker and was taking off. However, when banks going belly up in mid-2007 due to the forthcoming housing crises, I really could have used that income. Although Borders ended up closing, I would have had an existing platform with great reviews. I probably could have found another source. Outside of my family, friends, and pets, I have three great loves in this world - soccer, animals, and books. I would love to be a successful bookseller.

The lessons from this (at least the ones I took) is to prepare for things to change. Do your research and find alternative ways to do things. Have contingency plans and don't give up so easily. I am considering trying out selling books on Amazon after all these years. With the scanning app, I could use my love of scanning thrift stores and garage sales of books into sourcing product.

 

[rynor]

Failure: Built an eCommerce company selling makeup (my gf and I were partners, which was a mistake in itself) and tech accessories (wtf?).

ACT: I know plenty about technology and web design, she knows makeup and advertising. Let's collaborate, make something, and iterate as we go along.

ASSESS: We don't know anything about what it takes to find a suitable product/niche. Having two niches simultaneously is a terrible idea. We're spending a bunch of Ad money that we don't have. We work well in business together... to a point.

ADJUST: Never open an eCommerce business unless you have at least a semblance of a plan. Find one niche that isn't too saturated, and stick with it. Figure out the logistics and execute if the numbers make sense. Don't open a business with your significant other unless you're ready for more tension in a relationship OR if you guys actually work well together. Lol.

 

[mercenariez]

Act:

Kickstarter fail.

Thought I saw a need: hundreds of people commenting about it every day, hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube videos about this problem (unsolved), streamers talking every other day about this problem and how annoying it was, new YouTube videos coming out every so often about this problem (even to this day), etc.

So I created a solution. Took me ~4 months and about $1,000 in prototype testing and development. Doing everything related to the Kickstarter launch cost me time and energy too.

Little did I know that starting a Kickstarter is practically the same (at least it was for me) as doing grassroots person by person (one at a time) selling.

Second, the need was a lot less than I anticipated, or at least even though people were VOCAL about the need, they were not willing to PUT DOWN MONEY unless hard sold. The odd thing is they are willing to put down money for BIG NAME company “solutions” (basically keep rebuying the same defective product until it breaks, then rebuy, and repeat) but not for my solution (one time buy). Goes to show how hard it is to compete with the Big Dogs, even when your product is -literally- better, but you have no name and are basically a nobody.

Though my product solved the problem, overall though the customer probably saw my offer as weak (needed more time to make product more visually cool and advanced looking I guess), and 4 months, I realized, was the “event idealist” in me looking for that easy Kickstarter path to success, when in reality, even Kickstarters are long/hard PROCESSES. In other words, I would now say my product probably needed 1-2 more years of development on top of what I did to become a good enough offer for more customers to be interested in.

Assess:

My Kickstarter finished at 10% of its goal with no more than $10-$20 dollars spent in advertising.

I could have spent more on advertising and hard sold my way to 100%, but I actually already run more fruitful businesses, so I turned this pursuit down, since I expected it to explode on its own. Again, I thought there was a strong enough need for this solution to sell itself.

Assessment is I was wrong and I failed, though I learned a decent amount about Kickstarters I guess.

Adjust:

I don’t think I’d run a Kickstarter again knowing what I know now, but if I did I would do the following:

- talk to as many people DIRECTLY as possible (online and/or offline) re: what they thought about my product AHEAD of time, and ask for an order THEN and THERE to confirm buyer need as opposed to “I’m ‘interested’ but not willing to pay =D”
- ONLY if there was a LARGE amount of pre-orders ALREADY would I run the Kickstarter (60%-70% of goal, maybe even more)
- Don’t use the Kickstarter “guides” to make your page. People have low attention spans. Too lazy to detail what this means specifically, but basically don’t trust Kickstarter’s “tips”. Trust yourself and yourself only. You know what sells.

There is so much I can say on this but if anyone read this far my advice is don’t run a Kickstarter, honestly. I’ve learned so much from this experience re: why a Kickstarter is bad, but I don’t feel like writing any more about it right now due to typing fatigue. I am not saying it is impossible for one to run a successful campaign, or make money, but just that people should know that existing campaigns are highly deceptive in how they portray their “success” of funding, as event oriented (I got rich overnight!) instead of process oriented.

 

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[GoodluckChuck]

I started a website, posted content, and ran it for six months building up an audience to eventually sell a product.

When I finally went to sell the product, I couldn't get a payment processor. There were also some legal questions that were threatening the integrity of the business.

Almost a year later it's still unprofitable and has been a total failure. Learned a ton though.

 

[Einfamilienhaus]

Great Thread of Great Value!

I learned in some cases from the mistakes of you Guys.

Please tell more Stories!

 

[bingnanxu]

Great Thread of Great Value!

I learned in some cases from the mistakes of you Guys.

Please tell more Stories!

Why dont you share yours XD

 

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[theresgot2bemore]

Failure: I'll elaborate on the INSIDE once I reach Fastlane but for now I'll say it was a clothing company. It was high school and you could have given me a bag of money and I would have complained of how heavy it was. It did not go anywhere as long as the current partner, Sidewalker kid, at the time was in the company but afterwards it got some success from the owner aka Fastlaner.

Act: Toked in Key Biscayne with a Fastlane kid and a Sidewalker for most of high school and an idea was born to create a shirt company. Thanks to Fastlaner's father we got on it and realized quite a bit of the biz fundamentals.

Assess: Biggy and some common sense articles on places like Entrepreneur were right. Do not mix biz and friendships, don't put 50/50 decision making, and a lot of rookie mistakes. Another thing was missing out on making connections with Pitbull the rapper early on in Miami when he had just released M.I.A.M.I. album but being massive dumbasses it did not go anywhere.

Adjust: I helped sign out the Sidewalker kid from the company and Fastlane buddy made some progress on his side. Sidewalker kept sidewalking so no loss and I realized I needed a more solid business to get to prosperity. Later on I read MJ's book and now I'm here. I do have a few side hustles in mind so I can recruit $ to make major power plays so I look forward to the future.

 

[Einfamilienhaus]

Why dont you share yours XD

I have started a few months ago working on my "Business". There is no big story which could be interesting behind it.

But I think the biggest failure in my present life is to believe being born poor means staying poor.

But that is more off topic and it's not important.

 

[BooBoosHelix]

Put 20k usd in a crypto called Matic (now Polygon). Nobody was talking about it at the time. I looked into their GiHub, saw their massive tvl (billions of $ locked on the network), talked to developers who were building DAPPs on Matic on the forum. Everyone loved the technology. Didnt understand why their market cap (around 60-120 Mio at the time ) was so low compared to projects like cardano who didnt even have a smart contract support out. The writing was on the wall. After the project not moving for over a year i thought maybe i havent seen/understood something. There must be a reason nobody invests in it. I sold to buy other crypto. Have i just hold 6 month longer i would have booked over 1.5 Mio usd in profit.
Trust your own thought process + research + patience!!

 

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[Supa]

A few years ago I wanted to create a website for music producers and it turned into a failed passion based project.

I like music.

I mean, who doesn't?

But some time ago I also liked the idea of creating music. No. Not singing or rapping. None of the stuff you'd had to stand in front of a lot of people.
That wasn't for me.
I wanted to make beats. HipHop beats. The ones people would dance to in the club, while I'd stand there with a knowing smile that, yep, that song you're shaking your body to? I made that beat.

So I made beats.
They weren't really good and to be honest, I had no talent.
You may know those producers who have a melody for a song in their head and then play it out. I wasn't one of them. My way of making beats was more of playing around in FL Studio until it sounded good. Or looking up videos of other producers making their beats and trying similar things.

Anyway.

For a while I searched on Twitter for the term "send beats" and then sent some beats to those posting this. Over a few months I made around $500 selling my beats. It wasn't that much, but it felt good to earn money with something you enjoyed doing and it was cool to hear songs made with your beats. But I wanted to take it further. I wanted to get my beats to famous artists.

I got in contact with someone who was one part of a two people graphics team, who worked with famous rappers. I contact him and asked if he would get my beats to some of these rappers. We could make 50/50 if they sell. He said of course and since then we stayed in contact. I also found a website that you paid $20 a month to get access to contacts in the music industry.

Long story short, my beats were never picked.

But an idea grew in me after reading TMF . An idea of the "if everyone is digging for gold, sell shovels" type.

I wanted to create a website that would let music producers send their beats to famous musicians.

I had no idea of webdesign. No connections to the music industry. But. I knew someone who had connections and I had all those emails from managers and others in the music industry, from that website.

The guy from the graphics team liked the idea. So we started working on this project. Soon the idea went in a different direction, from a service that producrs could use to get their beats to big artists and labels, to a subscription model that gave members all the contact information we had collected.

We spent months creating the website using wordpress and a theme with a website builder and collecting contact information.

The site looked good, it worked more or less, we had a logo we paid someone to create, and we had the company officially registered in the UK as 50/50 co-founders. My business partner was from the UK, I'm from Germany. I don't know how many years after closing the company I had to do my taxes for the UK... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We went online.

And we actually got some subscribers. Mostly through paid ads.
I still remember the moment when I got a notification on my phone that someone subscribed to the site. My first taste of passive income.

I think the website had 4 or 5 subscribers, each paying around $5 a month.

Until now this may kinda sound like a success story. It isn't.
Ok, to be fair, to me it was somewhat of a success, because my business partner and I created something that actually generated a small passive income.

But the website never went further than that.
Despite some big plans. We wanted to create more websites like this one for more industries (like the film industry).

We decided to close the company.

My business partner understandably didn't have the time for this project. He still had the graphics company, that got more and more work to do, and he also studied medicine at that time.

Since the company was registered in the UK I couldn't continue the website on my own. At least not without difficulties.

We took the website down.

That's it. There's not one big failure in this story that led to the website's closing down.

I could've probably continued it somehow, but I didn't even look for possibilities to do so.
I just didn't believe in that project anymore.

The failure wasn't that we closed the company and the website.

The beginning of the failure of that project was way earlier.

This project was based completely on passion. A passion for making beats. Or for being a music producer. And even this was not even a real passion, as despite selling some beats I wasn't really that good at it. Maybe it was a passion for the idea of making good beats and being a good music producer. Combined with the idea of wanting to "sell shovels instead of digging for gold". But without really thinking about the need for or the unique value of this product.

Was this an awul idea? No. I don't think it was. I think it was a rather meh one. There already were sites where you could get most of the contact information we had on our site. There were sites that offered similar services like the initial idea, of sending beats to famous artists and labels. Our site was nothing special compared to those others. It had no unique value and didn't fill any big need that other websites didn't already fill.

It was a good learning experience, though.


ACT: Instead of selling beats (digging for gold), let's help others sell their beats (sell shovels).

ASSESS: Does this really fill a need and does this really have value for others?

ADJUST: Not continuing the website after having to close the company, but rather close the website with it.