{"id":11615,"date":"2018-10-29T10:21:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T14:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/?p=11615"},"modified":"2025-05-19T06:18:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T10:18:27","slug":"highly-successful-entrepreneurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/highly-successful-entrepreneurs\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Life-long Lessons We Can Learn From Failures of Highly Successful Entrepreneurs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Failures are integral to the journey of highly successful entrepreneurs<\/a>, offering valuable life-long lessons. Key takeaways include the importance of resilience, where setbacks are seen as stepping stones to success, and the necessity of taking risks for innovation, even if some ventures fail. Persistence is crucial, as overcoming obstacles often leads to long-term success.<\/p>\n

It is a never-ending debate. Some say that Entrepreneurs are born while others believe that they’re the outcome of their circumstances. One way or another, each Entrepreneur came with their own set of struggles, which they dealt with and found their way out of.<\/p>\n

JK Rowling has offered hope to aspiring authors everywhere, after revealing that she was turned down by 12 Publishers before finding success with the Harry Potter books<\/strong>. She was a single mother at that time and barely making ends meet. Tim Ferriss faced 25 rejections for the 4-hour week before the book was published.<\/p>\n

Every Entrepreneur, whether big or small, has faced brutal failures throughout their careers. You cannot change the past, but you can learn from others and not make the same mistakes again. Whether you have witnessed the ugly face of rejection, faced a massive failure, or got demotivated at some point in life. This list will remind you to focus on the ray of sunshine peeking out from behind the ominous clouds.<\/p>\n

<\/span>1. Bill Gates – Weak Business Model<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Before all the fame and money, Bill Gates was just an ordinary guy working on projects and figuring them out. In the early 1970s, Gates came up with a company known as Traf-O-Data, which aimed to analyze the data from roadway counters and create reports for traffic engineers.<\/p>\n
$\"bill-gates-quotes-about-success\"$ <\/p>\n
Paul Allen, in an interview, revealed that the business model for Traf-O-Data was flawed. Traf-O-Data totaled the net losses of $3,494. The shop was closed shortly after that.<\/p>\n
Lesson: <\/strong>Always start with a solid business model. Plan the pros and cons on a strategic level.<\/p>\n
<\/span>2. Evan Williams – Wrong Launch Date<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
The founder of Twitter faced a massive failure with his product Odeo. Although Evan worked hard on the product, the only mistake he made was launching it on the same day as the podcast section of iTunes came out.<\/p>\n
However, the side project Twitter went on to become an instant hit.<\/p>\n
$\"Evan-Williams-quote\"$ <\/p>\n
Lesson: <\/strong>In every business, patience is the key to success. If Evan Williams had stopped creating and testing his ideas, we wouldn’t have Twitter today. Find some side projects you can count on to earn a little extra on the side. If you play your cards right, you can turn an idea into a full-scale business.<\/p>\n
<\/span>3. Jeff Bezos – Obsession Over Competitors<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
When Jeff Bezos started Amazon, he was laser-focused on its competitors. The project failed massively but Bezos took important lessons out of it.<\/p>\n
$\"jeff-bezos-quotes-lifes-too-short\"$ <\/p>\n
Speaking in an interview, Bezos shared, ‘I was so busy focusing on our competitors that I forgot our customers.’<\/p>\n
Lesson:<\/strong> With Amazon, Bezos never bothered about the competitors. Right from the word go, Bezos kept his eyes on pleasing the customers. The key here is to follow the 80\/20 rule. This means that focus your energy on that 20 % of the customers who are giving you 80% of the business.<\/p>\n
<\/span>4. Fred Smith – Embrace & Learn From Failure<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\nWhen a video<\/a> of FedEx throwing a computer went viral, it bashed the core values that FedEx held dear for its company. Right after the video went viral, instead of playing the blame game, Fred Smith took responsibility and asked his employee to upload an apology video.<\/p>\n
$\"fred-smith-laugh-yourself-quote\"$ <\/p>\n
Lesson:<\/strong> Businesses fail and succeed mostly because of their values. Once the value is injected into the customer, a customer creates the pertinent perception of the company. If that perception is wrecked, it is difficult to get it back. Therefore, it is important to hold your company values close to your heart.<\/p>\n
<\/span>5. Peter Thiel – Surviving the $7 Billion Loss<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Sometimes, we learn things the hard way. Peter Thiel learned the hard lesson when one fine morning, he heard that he had lost $7 billion in the stock market; a massive 90% of his total assets. Instead of blaming anyone, Peter worked hard and created two billion-dollar businesses and sold them with pride.<\/p>\n
$\"Peter-Thiel-Motivational-Quote-Inspire-Entrepreneur-Quotes-Facebook-Paypal-LinkedIn-Startup\"$ <\/p>\n
Lesson:<\/strong> In business, failure is imminent. But not learning from that failure is the real failure. If you have failed, make sure that you get back up and continue on without making the same mistakes again. It is not just about failing, it is about trying things which did not work for you. Try something else.<\/p>\n
<\/span>To Wrap it Up<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
As we have seen, none of the people above were an overnight success. Success comes at a heavy price. And if you’re not prepared to pay the price. It will crush you and come again for you. The key is to take lessons from every failure and move on as if nothing happened. If you harbor grudges, it won’t do anyone good. The highly successful Entrepreneurs learn from their mistakes and move on with a fresh set of eyes.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Failures are integral to the journey of highly successful entrepreneurs, offering valuable life-long lessons. Key takeaways include the importance of resilience, where setbacks are seen as stepping stones to success, and the necessity of taking risks for innovation, even if some ventures fail. Persistence is crucial, as overcoming obstacles often leads to long-term success. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,373],"tags":[1321,1092],"class_list":["post-11615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-tips","category-entrepreneurship","tag-life-long-lessons","tag-successful-entrepreneurs"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11615"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18784,"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11615\/revisions\/18784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/branex.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}