How do you measure success in start-up?

I’m going guess that the most popular answers would include: sales, profit, and cashflow.

But what about personal gain? Experience, contacts, character development, and knowledge gained.

Why is Silicon Valley, California a region of such commendable innovation? Is the region populated with only ambitious entrepreneurs that never make mistakes? That would be great. Silicon Valley is made up of many intelligent, ambitious people, but – of course, everyone makes mistakes. Many projects fail, businesses fail. So how does Silicon Valley do it?

Not only is the culture of Silicon Valley promote innovation and the implementation of off-the-wall, risky ideas – they are also open to sharing mistakes made and lessons learned in business. During the process of creating something from scratch, omissions can occur, and do occur. Upon unfavorable implementations, entering a state of hibernation to avoid comments like, “I told you so” from cynical friends is not an option. Rather than hiding or fearing competitors moving ahead with knowledge of what ‘not-to-do’, the idea of the industry moving forward has been adopted. As competitors learn of ineffective strategies, leapfrogging becomes a great benefit for the industry as a whole and the consumers. Change and improvement is embraced with a sense of pride for start-ups that flop. I suppose you can say these flops are digested with a healthy dose of salt. The lessons learned hold a high importance, ultimately… making flops respectable…

A couple of years ago, during a conference with Mr. Michael Dell, the words that stood out most for me were: “Learn from your mistakes”. We’ve heard this before, realizing the importance of these words is major.

Personal gain, in terms of lessons learnt is something that can not be taught or fully understood through the exchange of words.  Compensation in the form of experience as an entrepreneur and character development is often underrated with entrepreneurs that do not succeed with one specific project. Many may not realize that it is not unusual if it takes more than one try to finally create the winning product/service.  All entrepreneurs I’ve had the opportunity to meet, persistence, passion, and discipline have been three common attributes – in my opinion, the three most important attributes.

A part of Silicon Valley’s success comes from the strong network of like-minded people and experiences shared. The skills that entrepreneurs bring to the table are valued and respected. Creating an open network, allowing entrepreneurs to embrace ideas and concepts that work and concepts that don’t, is essential to the success and development of a region.

The importance of learning from a mistake is not easy. I think it’s important we remember that, moving forward and using the knowledge, experience, and network gained to re-strategize is an opportunity to be capitalized on.

-Esha
Copyright © Esha Abrol, Canada. 2009