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James Dyson Created 5,127 Versions of a Product That Failed Before Finally Succeeding. His Tenacity Reveals a Secret of Entrepreneurship.

by ARTICLES
  • Sometimes wrong turns are what lead you to success.
  • Below is as featured on www.entrepreneur.com/ May 23, 2022.

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“Failure is interesting — it’s part of making progress. You never learn from success, but you do learn from failure.”

James Dyson, British inventor

Imagine spending five years of your life creating 5,127 versions of a product that failed. That’s exactly what the inventor of cyclonic vacuum technology, James Dyson did. Until finally, one magical day, he hit gold — finally succeeding in creating the world’s first bagless vacuum cleaner.

In some ways, entrepreneurship can seem like a type of madness — not unlike the obsessiveness that overtakes artists. But in Dyson’s case, his patience and persistence eventually led to payoff: a multi-billion dollar company known for its creativity and forward-thinking designs.

Today, the Dyson vacuum cleaner is sold in more than 65 countries worldwide. In an interview with Entrepreneur, the inventor explained how he was able to accept a long series of failures without letting frustration overwhelm him. “We have to embrace failure and almost get a kick out of it,” he noted. “Not in a perverse way, but in a problem-solving way. Life is a mountain of solvable problems, and I enjoy that.”

Learning means being okay with not having all the answers

We live in a rapid-paced society where we access information with the click and point of our finger — which means we absorb data at an unprecedented velocity. You can ask me a question this instant and I will take out my smartphone and spew out random facts.

But is this…actually learning?

Sure, we can access Wikipedia and feel like we’ve become experts on a topic.

But true, legitimate learning doesn’t come with ease. I am not advocating you quit researching things online (reading from reputable sources does expand our mind). What I do want is to rid ourselves of this false notion that learning is separate from discomfort.

Failing is painful, it makes you insecure and doubt everything. I know a little about this myself, because I’ve spent 16 years growing a business that has been met with many stumbles along the way.

But here’s the secret to entrepreneurship few will say: You have to fall in love with failing. You have to fall in love with your hunger for learning, for discovery, for being an inventor.

I am a person who enjoys taking long hikes in nature alone. I’ve gotten lost on the wrong tracks more times than I can count. But the process of finding the right way out — of learning that there are many paths that can lead us to the right outcome, it’s a lesson that stays with me both in my career and in my personal life.

I’d like to share some practical tips I’ve learned from experts and my own experience to help you become a life-long learner unafraid of making a wrong turn.

1. Cultivate the passion of the explorer

Harvard Business Review contributor John Hagell III wanted to get to the core of what motivates lifelong learners. What he discovered in his research is that rather than fear being an incentive for learning, it was those individuals who exhibited a “passion of the explorer” who were able to learn and grow.

“Explorers have a long-term commitment to achieving impact in a specific domain that excites them,” hewrites. “Anything from factory work or financial services to gardening or big wave surfing.”

Hagel believes we all have the potential for this form of passion. “Go to a playground and watch children 5-6 years old. They have all of the elements required: curiosity, imagination, creativity, and a willingness to take risks, and connect with others.”

Doing this in practice, however, can seem tricky. The fear of making a mistake is so ingrained in us. But it’s possible to make these adjustments in our daily lives by making a conscious choice to experiment, test out new possibilities and adapt along the way.

The way of the explorer is to be comfortable with the unknown — because their curiosity surpasses their fears.

2. Practice questioning the status quo

I’ve offered Dyson as an example of someone taking years to perfect his product — but I should also offer myself as an example. One of our latest products, Jotform Tables, which allows teams to collect, organize, and manage data in an all-in-one workspace — took us a whopping three years to develop.

So I am well aware of what it means to relentlessly pursue a vision.

But so much of this process started out and evolved by resetting our status quo and in asking ourselves, What else is possible? How might we make our customer’s lives even easier?

HBR co-authors Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis advocate for making learning a part of our daily routine, and part of that involves asking propelling questions to explore different ways of doing things. Here are some examples the researchers recommend asking both of ourselves and our teams:

  • Imagine it’s 2030. What three significant changes have happened in your industry?
  • Which of your strengths would be most useful if your organization doubled in size?
  • If you were rebuilding this business tomorrow, what would you do differently?

3. Embrace the growing pains of relearning

It isn’t only failure that brings discomfort. At times it’s being swept up in the changing tides we have no control over. If we’ve learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that we’ve had to relearn how to do things in nearly every domain of our lives — parenting, communicating over Zoom, managing the endless fatigue of an ongoing crisis.

But these growing pains aren’t all bad, according to HBR co-authors Tupper and Ellis. “Relearning is recognizing that how we apply our strengths is always changing and that our potential is always a work in progress,” they note. “We need to regularly reassess our abilities and how they need to be adapted for our current context.”

So, how do we remain nimble in the face of change? A few things that have worked for me: counting every small success at the end of each day (even writing it down as a reminder), maintaining my focus on what’s working well and continuously being open to feedback.

For me, spending years on prototypes isn’t just about tenacity; it’s a question of faith. And it’s this faith that gives us the courage, confidence and hope to persevere against all odds.

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BILL

Bill Gates Says Unhappy Customers Are Good for Your Business. Here’s Why.

by ARTICLES
  • Learning why your customers become unhappy teaches how you can improve the customer experience and build loyalty.
  • Below is as featured on www.entrepreneur.com/ October 22, 2020.

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“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Bill Gates

Entrepreneur Editors’ Picks

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Looking For A Business Idea? Start With Your Purpose

by ARTICLES
  • Here’s a completely different way of developing a business idea.
  • Instead of focusing on a problem worth solving, focus on the purpose that drives you.
  • Below is as featured on www.entrepreneur.com/ on June 29, 2021.

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Have you ever tried to come up with a new business idea? For some entrepreneurs, the idea comes naturally — perhaps it came from a familiar industry, or there was an unsolved problem that the founder experienced first-hand. But not every aspiring founder has a clear idea of exactly what that business should do. So, where to start?

Many business schools will recommend a set formulation: First, start by identifying a problem in the world or in your life. Then develop a solution. There are other methods, of course — like assessing personal skills and abilities, using design thinking, undertaking market research, and so on. But one element often gets overlooked, or left as an afterthought.

That element is a sense of purpose. It isn’t just the driving force of a business; it can also be the seed of a business idea.

Purpose before problem

In this alternative formulation, a sense of purpose — both individual and corporate — comes first, and helps to guide the rest of the process. Forget quickly drawing up your corporate mission as a last-minute addition to your pitch deck. Instead, try asking yourself the following questions before you even begin:

  • What is my personal purpose?
  • What purpose would I like my business to work towards?
  • Which ultimate goals drive my ambition?

Once you have a few initial thoughts, see if you can go deeper still. You may have heard of the Five Whys method, originally used in a corporate context to get to the core of an issue. Here, you can also apply it to your own purpose-finding journey. Ask yourself, “What is my personal purpose?” Come up with an answer. Then challenge that answer by asking, “Why?” Repeat that five times (hence the Five Whys), as a way of getting closer to the core of what drives you. This is essential — not just as a personal self-awareness initiative, but as a key aspect of your business plan.

For example, let’s say you start with the following answer: “My purpose is to be successful in work.” Why? Maybe it’s because you’d be happy if things went well with your work. Why? It could be that you can see how your work impacts others, and this gives you a sense of pride. Why? Because you want to do work that matters. Why? Because you want to feel like your work contributes to the world, or gives back in some way. Why? Maybe you want to feel like you left the world a better place, and it’s important to you that your work reflects the values you believe in.

There’s no right or wrong way to work through this method. It’s just a tool to help you explore your intentions in more depth. You don’t have to end up with an answer about changing the world, either. If it’s meaningful to you (for example, living with authenticity, taking care of your family, or connecting with your community), it should be included.

Back to business

Let’s say you’ve uncovered a foundational sense of purpose, or you’ve looked at your personal mission in a little more detail. What next? There are a couple of ways you can use a sense of purpose to guide a business plan.

First, you can return to the traditional model of finding a problem in an existing market and then searching for a solution — but this time, look at it through the lens of purpose. Taking a broad example, if your purpose was to “create happiness for others” (borrowing from The Disney Institute), you can look at your market problem through this lens. How could you find a solution to your problem that would not just serve a functional, profit-driven outcome, but also serve your purpose of maximising happiness? Applying the purpose lens might lead you to a different way of addressing the problem, or a different approach to the issue altogether.

Second, you can use your sense of purpose to actually formulate the business idea itself, and locate your market, problem and solution. Take beauty disruptor Glossier as an example. Their corporate mission statement is to “democratise beauty” and to “give voice through beauty.” The result, for Glossier, is a consumer-focused company with an emphasis on inclusivity. But by starting with the mission statement alone, you could brainstorm hundreds of other ideas that work towards the same purpose. This is a process of creativity, and — if you’re thinking about generating business ideas for yourself — you can use your personal sense of purpose as a starting point.

Finally, you can realign an existing business idea to reflect your personal mission and purpose. Let’s say you’ve already seen a market problem, found a solution, validated it with consumers and started to build. A sense of purpose is still an important part of your strategy, no matter what stage you’re at. At this later stage, try to work out exactly what need you’re meeting for your customers or users. This might go one level deeper than just a product or service. Think about values, experience and personal connection. From there, you can work backwards to see what kind of purpose your company serves.

The purpose of purpose

What’s the point of all of this purpose-finding work? When it comes to the entrepreneurial lifestyle — long hours, perseverance, exhaustion — does having a sense of purpose help? In fact, research indicates that it does.

A recent study by Harvard Business Review suggests that entrepreneurs with a sense of “harmonious passion” (i.e., motivated by the job because it brings a sense of satisfaction and personal identification) were less likely to report experiences of burnout than entrepreneurs with a sense of “obsessive passion” (i.e., motivated by the job because of the status, money or other external rewards).

From a practical perspective, building a strong corporate purpose into my own startup has given me clarity at every later stage of the process — in pitching to prospective investors, in formulating business strategy, and in giving me a vision for the future.

On a more personal level, having a sense of purpose can provide the energy and drive you need to continue working on your business, day after day, year after year. Once the initial excitement of a new project fades, and you’re left with the difficult, consistent work of building your business, you’ll have a solid foundation of meaning, mission and purpose to support you.

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