There Is No Such Thing As A Failed Entrepreneur

I’ve started to notice a worrying trend in the way people talk about entrepreneurs, and about the way they sometimes talk about themselves. By definition, entrepreneur means someone who organizes, manages and assumes the risk of a business.

Success is neither implied nor guaranteed in entrepreneurship.I’d even argue it’s not expected. It’s expected that you’ll fail. Statistically you will fail. But increasingly people take on entrepreneurship like it’s a given that they’ll succeed. Optimism is vital in entrepreneurs, but the attitude I’m seeing today borders on entitlement. And I believe this is part of what’s leading to the sad stories like this, where entrepreneurs are taking their lives.

To me being an entrepreneur is binary. You are either an entrepreneur or you aren’t. You either started or took ownership of something, or you didn’t. Thinking about starting something, doesn’t make you an entrepreneur. Your startup might (probably will) fail gloriously, but you are still an entrepreneur.

“Do, or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda

Usually when I see blog posts talking about failed entrepreneurs, they’re talking about lessons that entrepreneurs have learned from their failures. That’s great. It’s healthy and productive to share the learnings from our failures. I think it’s actually one of the many things entrepreneurs do better than employees.

You rarely hear employees talking about their failures. In an interview recently, I asked a prospective employee to tell me about a failure of theirs and what they learned from it. He proceeded to tell me about a time that something happened that was out of his control ruined a project. This was your classic non-answer. When I ask an entrepreneur that same question they tell me about a time that they royally screwed something up, when they made a bad choice and everything went wrong. Even when something out of their control happens they talk about how they could have reacted better. That’s taking ownership.

Just as worrying as the self-criticism I mentioned above, I’ve started to read blogs and hear sarcastic or scornful comments (usually made by that community of seemingly professional conference attendees) about entrepreneurs and their failed startups. These belittling comments are almost never made by people who have tried to start something themselves. These are critics, in the worst possible sense. And the best response to critics is that of Theodore Roosevelt, from his quote called “The Man in the Arena” which is an excerpt from his speech “Citizenship In A Republic” made in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

When I hear friends refer to themselves as failed entrepreneurs, because their business failed, or they’ve yet to have a big exit, this makes me sad. I understand their frustration (believe me, I understand), but there is no shame in trying and failing. Criticize your failures, learn from your failures, but don’t let your failures defeat you. And don’t listen to the critics.

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Originally published at tacanderson.com.