“I sold my house for US$ 1.2m and invested all the money in my first business, but it didn’t work out.” My boss once told me his story over a dinner with me. “I was desperate, but I never give up. Finally, I have built a US$ 35m worth company.”
Keep Going
I know he didn’t lie to me because he really persuaded investors to invest this amount of money after several rounds of fundraising.
Although the company needs to build up strong foundation in the first few years, so it is still in loss position, I can foresee that it will become profitable in couple of years.
Similar to my boss, Christopher Hwang and Jonathan Shen had the same attitude when they faced several failure on their Entrepreneurial road.
So who are they? They are the founders of The Golden Duck brand of addictive salted-egg snacks in Singapore.
I don’t know if you like snacks or not, but I am not a snacks lover. I did eat some snacks sometimes when I was working in my previous company. However, most of the time I just ate at breakfast, lunch and dinner time.
Back then there was a Singapore branch in my previous company, and the Singapore Colleagues sometimes travelled to Hong Kong for internal training. One of the souvenirs they used to bring to Hong Kong colleagues was this salted egg snacks.
Basically this is like potato chips but it is more salty, and once you try it you will become addictive to it. I don’t know what kind of special magic Christopher and Jonathan have put into the manufacturing process, but it really suits people’s taste.
Failure is just the Start of another Success
In the article you can see that they said they have lost US$ 1m from the nightclub business, but they didn’t give up, and finally they built this brand of The Golden Duck.
You may say that it is very easy to say “don’t give up”, especially when I am using some successful people’s stories as examples – they eventually win the game. How about tens of thousands of losers who are forced to give up after many trials?
You are right about it, but that doesn’t mean that we should give up when we fail for several times. Failure might mean that the business ideas are not feasible, and we might need to give up that idea; failure DOESN’T mean that we should give up on this entrepreneurial life.
Once we decided to walk along this road, we need to walk down the road until we see the end of it.
I am sure someones with extreme luck can get success in their first trial, but most of the entrepreneurs fail for so many times before they get a small success in their businesses, and then they take this opportunity to get more success.
See Christopher and Jonathan. They gave up the idea of nightclub when they failed, but they didn’t give up on the idea of building their own business.
What if they fail again? I am sure they would continue to look for other business ideas until they get their first success. It is because they know exactly why they pick this road in the first place.
Always Remember the Reasons
Deep down we all know why we want to build our own businesses instead of working for others. If we keep reminding ourselves with the reasons, we will know that every failure on this road is just the start of another Success.
Just like Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” The failures are the dots, and they will eventually be connected to our own “Success”.
So what are the reasons? Maybe it is our live-long purpose? Maybe we want to build something for ourselves? Maybe we want to try something new? Maybe we want to resolve some problems that others cannot resolve? Or maybe we just want to take this chance to make more money?
My boss knows his reason of running his own business, and I am sure Christopher and Jonathan know too.
They didn’t just “know” the reasons – they are obsessed with those reasons, obsessed with the future they have been dreaming in many nights, the future that they become successful in their businesses.
Success is not a one time thing, but something we need to keep working on without giving up.
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If you want to know more about what I have learnt from other successful people, you can click the below link. This could the one of the life-changing articles for you:
Like!! I blog quite often and I genuinely thank you for your information. The article has truly peaked my interest.