Why is entrepreneurship like an experiment? I’m Mimi Evans, and I’m going to explain how this works.
Businesspeople Are Always Experimenting
You’re a founder of a company, or you’re running a company, and believe it or not you are also part scientist, because you are constantly running experiments. I am going to quote Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, on this. One of the things he believes in is letting his people fail. So while there’s a lot of successes, they’re also allowed to make mistakes. “Failure and invention are inseparable twins.”
How do you incorporate this into your business? When you create a new product or launch a new product, you are putting it out there there to see if it flies, to see if it gets traction.
If Your Experiment Fails, You Pivot and Adjust
If it does, your experiment has worked. Listen to your customers. If it doesn’t, you do what we call a pivot.
Pivoting means you have to adjust something to make it right. That is an experiment. So it’s really really important as you drive your business forward to feel comfortable making mistakes along the way. It’s part of the process. And if you’re not doing that, you’re not experimenting. Why do people not experiment enough? Because they’re afraid of one thing. All humans are afraid of failing. So because of that they get stuck, and they’re afraid to launch new products, and they’re afraid to experiment.
You have to get over that fear, make some mistakes, and get your business moving forward. Make it a priority this week, this month, to get your product or service out there in the hands of real customers, run your experiment, or as Nike put it: just do it.
About Mimi Evans
Mimi Evans is currently CEO and Founder of Fast Turtle Ventures, dedicated to helping startups get their first traction and cross the chasm to success. This includes all aspects of financial fortitude (sales, fundraising, business development, and financial organization).
In addition, she currently serves as a ‘scout’ for Beacon Angels and other angel groups looking to fund early stage entrepreneurs.
Prior to founding Fast Turtle Ventures, she was the Co-Founder and CEO of Salesquest.com, a technology-driven company that provided data to high-tech companies; such as EMC, IBM and Microsoft; in order to boost their sales, marketing and CRM systems.
After a successful exit to OneSource Information Systems, she is now focused on helping the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Boston and Cambridge.