Failure in the UK
Many people said that in the UK we see failure as exactly that – something to be avoided and a stain on a business person's reputation. In America there is a very different attitude, with "permission to fail" built in to the business model. As one person wrote in a post, in America "bankruptcy is just very intensive market research" and many people "fail their way to success".
I've just come across an article from the Telegraph which discusses the lessons we can learn from Silicon Valley. Once again this issue of permission to fail has arisen as a key difference between the UK and Silicon Valley.
In my recent experience of being amongst entrepreneurs in the BSEEN incubator, I have learned that not everyone in the UK feels that failure is to be avoided, but those who see that failure is a learning process agree that the UK as a whole does not encourage failure at all.
With lasyou, the location based social network I built in my final year of University, ending with so much potential remaining, and now location based social networks being dominated by the startups from the US, I already feel like I have had one failure. I'm glad, because I learned a lot from the experience.
Unless we come together as a community of entrepreneurs and break through this issue of failure not being allowed, we are severely affecting our potential to grow truly world-changing successful startups.
I am hoping I can make even a small difference with StartupMill.
Let's do something about it. Get in touch if you're in.
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