In this fourth part of my four-segment interview with Eric Ries, author of the "Lessons Learned" blog, Eric talks about "failure" and why it happens to all of us and is a prerequesite to learning. "Stop the success theater," he said, referring to entrepreneurs who typically look at their successes as they give advice to others. "We're in the learning business."
Eric also talks about his blindness while at IMVU, thinking that he and his colleagues could "predict the future," and the time he was "paralyzed" right before a launch of IMVU's first version. He also admits that even though he advises people to listen to customers, he often has a difficult time taking the feedback himself.
Finally, he shares his top three lessons to entrepreneurs.
Firstly, know how you measure progress. In entreprneurship, learning is progress. Secondly, the speed at which you make decisions is more important than if the decision is the right one. Thirdly, work in the smallest batch sizes because the faster you release, the faster you’ll get feedback.
And, as a teacher to entrepreneurs, what would he want them to walk away with from his lessons?
"I want people to look back at the work that they did because they thought the work they did was worthwhile... where startups are failing is because they’re using it [their startup] as a means to an end."
Be sure to watch interview No. 1 and No. 2 with Eric.
Interview 1: Eric Ries on his lean startup awakening
Interview 2: Eric Ries on his lean startup methodology
Interview 3: Eric Ries on pivots and continous deployment
Eric is right about the necessity and advantages of learning from failure. I invested 5 years in a startup that in the end, was not as successful as it might have been. It wasn’t a total failure, but there were enough failure markers along the way to make it feel like it. We eventually sold and the company is still in business, but I’ve never thought of it as a success. What was and is a great success from that experience though, is what I’ve learned both during and since that time. I learned more through that prolonged struggle than I had in 15 years previously of working for large companies. I’ve made a point of evaluating my experiences, my mistakes, the mistakes of others, and our successes in the larger context of my career and in the context of my current work. On the basis of that learning, I would do it all over again and learn even more. I am and will be much more successful in my career than I would have been without the failure and the conscious effort to learn.