I was drawn to a blog post by James Watt recently where he said quite simply that if your startup fails, it's probably your fault (note the critical modal adverb there) - and I think he's right - when my 22 year old "startup" failed it was due to one of these factors.

But which one?

He released a video elaborating more on this thesis:

James Watt on LinkedIn: If your startup fails, it's probably your fault. You either: - Lacked… | 77 comments
If your startup fails, it's probably your fault. You either: - Lacked resilience - Didn't know your numbers Master both and you win. ------ ♻️ Repost to… | 77 comments on LinkedIn
LinkedInJames Cook

And I think he's right.

For me, resilience is the single most important thing not only in business - but in life more generally.

I want my kids to learn 3 things by the time they're adults:

  1. Resilience
  2. Growth Mindset
  3. Critical Thinking

If I was to add a 4th to that, it would be "don't be a dickhead".

But genuinely in the course of life itself I think those are the three most important things to have a happy life. Not always happy of course, but that's why learning resilience from a young age is so important.

In the words of Lazyboy:

Sometimes you've got to suffer a little bit in your youth to motivate yourself to succeed in later life
Do you think if Bill Gates got laid in high school, do you think there'd be a Microsoft?
Of course not
You got to spend a long time stuffed in your own locker with your underwear wedged up your ass before you start thinking: "I'm going to take over the world of computers. You'll see. I'll show them!"

If this poetic masterpiece is unknown to you by the way, be sure to watch the video which does this more justice:

The point is - RESILIENCE MATTERS.

Whilst I wasn't stuffed into my own locker at high school, I was lifted up by my throat and hung on a hook.

I was thrown over a fence (seriously the guys at my school was clearly S-T-R-O-N-G) and I was teased relentless for, well let's be honest, being a podgy little porker.

But - that did build resilience.

And this continued throughout life.

At my last business, the most important company value was "Relentless Resilience" - and whatever people may say of me and the team at Venntro, I hope they couldn't deny we were at least rather resilient.

So I believe that we were resilient and that's not the reason Venntro Failed (if you want to learn more about how Venntro collapsed, read Act I, II, III, IV and Epilogue).

But did we know our numbers?

Well - that's a nuanced question, it's not black and white. We had numbers, but ever since we outsourced our accounting function to our accountants at the time (the first time I'd done this in 20 years of trading), we had problems.

So many mistakes we were made by these accountants that we decided to bring the accounting back in-house - but despite the best efforts of some incredible people (especially Ewa and Jess) correcting these mistakes, we had built up a large number of issues that made us vulnerable when a very ill-advised creditor (and they were advised by The Prince) sent a statutory demand - which in turn resulted in a pre-pack administration process.

So James - you're right - our startup failed ultimately because we didn't know our numbers well enough and have the right level of insight.

In some of my new businesses I've started I'm using Digits AI for my accounting - it provides AI bookkeeping services which I hope will mean I'm much better informed about the state of our company books much faster than was possible previously. After we outsourced our accounting, at one time our books were 9 months delayed - so instant accounting is very attractive.

I hope this has been useful - please do leave me a comment!