What Does Fail Fast Mean?
Having spent more than 15 years in the startup space, the concept of failing fast was new to me in my early entrepreneurial days too
I would have benefited back then from the knowledge I've since learned about failing fast and how to use it.
If you're an emerging entrepreneur or have been doing it for years, you should check these ideas out on failing fast.
If you'd benefit by exploring these concepts at a deeper level to enhance your creativity, innovation, and momentum, then reach out to get started here.
Enjoy this week's 2 Ideas and 1 Playlist!!!
- Mark
1. What Does Fail Fast Mean?
You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to have heard the phrase fail fast.
When you first hear it even sounds appealing. If you're going to hit a failure, wouldn't you want to do it fast? Then you could move on to the next task at hand and quickly past the uncomfortable feelings of failure.
But, when do you apply the failing fast rule?
If you are passionate about an idea, do you want to fail fast then?
If you've finally decided to take an enormous leap, is that a good time to fail fast?
Failing fast isn’t for the big, transformative issues. It’s for testing small changes to find the things that work and don't to help you discover the actions that will have you making faster progress on the larger goals on your journey. Fail fast on the small tasks so you can be steadfast on your larger goals.
2. Three Steps On How To Fail Fast
Great, you want to fail fast, but how do you do it?
If you’re like many entrepreneurs, you probably pick a point in time, call it the finish line, and if it was a short period of time, then say you failed fast.
But isn’t there a better way?
Here are three steps to do it better:
Be specific. No goals like, I’m going to start sharing my idea. Instead, set goals like talking to 20 potential customers and sharing how you are working on their problems.
Be accountable. Instead of I'll try to talk with 20 potential customers. Set a goal to call five of them each Wednesday.
Be timebound. Such as I will do these actions for the next month.
At the end of your timeframe, measure the results. Then decide if you should continue, make adjustments, or stop altogether. By following a simple method like this, you can make decisions faster, gauge their effectiveness, and determine if they are moving your transformative goals forward.