The Road not Taken ... where's the restart button?

If failed at a business startup, what does it take to have another go?

Precis: Left a safe academic job to start up my own services company ... just in time for the Global Financial Crisis. So now after losing savings, health and even wife, everyone is telling me to cut losses, get a "real" job and forget my dreams.

Everyone talks about the successes of founders (Gates, Jobs, etc) but coming to terms with being a loser in the lottery of life is harder. How have others handled it? Is it really realistic to kill off the dreams, stick to being a wage-slave to pay off debts and just forget about being independent? Maybe there's no answer but like to hear others' experiences.

What does it take to push the restart button?

Your question seems to call for more of a right-brained answer, so I hope this is helpful.

Tony Robbins is a motivational speaker who once wrote, "what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?" The idea is you think about your deepest dreams and pursue them with infinite passion--certainty of success changes your behavior for the better.

That's an interesting thought, but so is the opposite: "what would you do if you knew you couldn't succeed?" That statement is not too far off from the truth for many ventures as they are drenched in uncertainty. Most people don't consciously pursue futile endeavors, so let's revise it to: "what would you do if the venture was worthy but the odds could possibly be long?" How would your comport yourself?

Here's how I might answer that question:

• I'd partner more effectively
• I'd do a better job of not being deceived by my reality distortion field.
• I'd become THE expert on rapid prototyping and experimenting.
• I'd put many more ideas on the table.
• I might spread my effort more randomly accross ideas (knowing that I don't know what will work)

Gurus paint this pretty face on the Darwinian struggle and create false expectations. But its trial with lots of error.

What does it take to hit "restart"? Put some of the blame for your past failure on Darwin (and Tony Robbins). And engineer your next venture such that failure is a more palatable outcome.

If that advice doesn't work for you, become a Guru. Those who can do and those who can't write books and become consultants.

Figure out what mistakes you made in your first attempt. Be sure to avoid those mistakes the second time around. Failures can be good, but only if you learn from them...

Make sure your business isn't dependent to such external factors as the economy. Create something that is NEEDED, touches a lot of people - but doesn't require a lot of touch from you.

What was your first business? A service company - you mean as in self employment/freelance work? That's not really a business, as in "system", its more like being your own boss but still going to your job.

Sounds like you've already lost everything, so you got nothing left to lose! ;-)

I can recommend a book called the millionaire fast lane by MJ Demarco. It's a great eyeopening and inspiring book. (And he even got his customers giving him free advertisement aperantly... xD)

GOOD LUCK!

Well, there is no one answer, its really down to you.

Personally I would look at all the things I had done and learnt over the time and work out what is actually useful.

My technique:

Take a recording device (iphone recorder will do) and talk into it "the good, the bad and the ugly".
Be honest with yourself. Everything thats been floating around in your head, all the things you did wrong, all the opportunities missed and lost, the things you did get right.
The time you did the wrong thing by the client, by the supplier, by your partner, how that made them feel ... the works.

This can take one session it can take weeks of 5 minutes a day. Until you get it all out.
This allows you to acknoweldge all the feelings, guilt and worries and allows you to move on.

Then evaluate "knowing all I know, do I really want to try again?"

What out of all of that learning can I take and use? who do I have to apologize to?

If you decide to move on and try again, then what am I going to do different in the next 12 months to the previous 12 months?

What is my new short term (2 week to 2 month) definition of success? Get a few early wins, what ever they are, it doesn't have to be money, it can be new website, new product/service, new sale, new business plan ... something to talk about as a success.

From this you can point to a change and point to a success happening from that change, this is key when talking to others who tell you to get a real job. You build yourself back up and build the story in your head back up to match it.

and listen to Newton Faulkner - Long Shot... it speaks to me about this.

Sacrificing life's necessities is not positively correlated to success in building a business. The 'barriers to start-up' in all business opportunities have never been lower, so starting again is not the problem. The problem is surviving another go at it.

For that I'd recommend a shift in mindset. Consider that choosing to support yourself is not 'killing' your dreams when you can still choose to do so in your free time.

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I disagree with Olli. The idea that "you've lost everything, so now risk it all" is dangerous advice particularly with you story.