How learning from business failures can help us innovate better?

TALK

Yesterday, I was invited to speak on 'understanding business failures: how can we innovate better?'.

One of my key takeaways on the importance of learning from business failures is 'success + failure' learning = competitive insights.

Why? Reason being, in order to scale a business, it's rocket science.

In the presentation deck, I presented how we can draw our competitive advantage or differentiation by learning from the Unique Value Proposition (UVP) or Unique Selling Point (USP) of others' to better design our UVP/USP.

*Disclaimer: Numerous excerpts were paraphrased from the books and articles as cited below in my presentation deck for your further reading.

Author

Paul Lee, Co-founder & CEO, Flipidea

Citation and republishing

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References

Beyer, T. (2019). Getting to $50 million: How to avoid the SaaS Valley of Death. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/30/getting-to-50-million-how-to-avoid-the-saas-valley-of-death/

Bygrave, W. D., & Zacharakis, A. (2014). Entrepreneurship, 3rd Edition. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/entrepreneurship-3rd-edition/9781118582893/

Carroccio, B., & Chen, A. (2020). The a16z Marketplace 100. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://a16z.com/2020/02/18/marketplace-100/

Dayangku, S. (2020). Despite RM10mil In Funding, Here's The Real Reason Why Offpeak Shut Down After 5 Years. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://vulcanpost.com/696046/offpeak-malaysia-food-discount-platform-shut-down-update/

Flaherty, J. (2017). Invisible unicorns: 35 big companies that started with little or no money. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/01/invisible-unicorns-35-big-companies-that-started-with-little-or-no-money/

Flipidea Viewpoints. (2019). What is your definition of business failure? Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://viewpoints.flipidea.co/what-is-your-definition-of-business-failure/

Janz, C. (2019). What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2019? Retrieved 19 September 2020, from https://medium.com/point-nine-news/what-does-it-take-to-raise-capital-in-saas-in-2019-26829debef29

Kooij, J. van der (2015). Achieving $1M ARR. What does it mean? Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://blog.stormventures.com/achieving-1m-arr-what-does-it-mean-da66d37179b3

Lee, P. (2020). Startup VC Funding Metrics & Benchmarks. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://viewpoints.flipidea.co/startup-vc-funding-guide/

Lee, P., Kamaluddin, E., Nadzirah, S., & Lai, D. T. C. (2020). Descriptive analysis: why did 500 companies shut down? Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://viewpoints.flipidea.co/why-did-500-startups-shut-down/

Levy-Weiss, G. (2020). The New Mindset for Product-Market Fit. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://www.nfx.com/post/new-mindset-product-market-fit/

McClure, D. & Shorter, S. (2020). VC Fund Secondary: Buy the Winning Ticket at Halftime. Retrieved 6 October 2020, from https://practicalvc.com/vc-fund-secondary-buy-the-winning-ticket-at-halftime-at-half-price/

Nasser, S. (2018). Roadmap to a SaaS IPO: how to unicorn your way to $100M revenue. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://medium.com/parisoma-blog/roadmap-to-a-saas-ipo-unicorning-your-way-to-100m-revenue-33e065ce7548

Nobel, C. (2011). Why Companies Fail - and How Their Founders Can Bounce Back. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-companies-failand-how-their-founders-can-bounce-back

Rachitsky, L. (2020). What it feels like when you've found product-market fit - Issue 45. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/what-it-feels-like-when-youve-found

Sequoia Capital. (2020). The Matrix for COVID-19. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://medium.com/sequoia-capital/the-matrix-for-covid-19-c25bd5195f46

Sparks, A. (2019). Understanding Venture Capital. Holloway Guide To Raising Venture Capital. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://www.holloway.com/g/venture-capital/sections/understanding-venture-capital

Suster, M. (2016). Why Raising Too Much Money Can Harm Your Startup. Retrieved 6 October 2020, from https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-raising-too-much-money-can-harm-your-startup-5adc112e1259

Trivedi, N. B. (2020). Agglomerators vs. Specialists. Retrieved 6 October 2020, https://nbt.substack.com/p/agglomerators-vs-specialists

Turck, M. (2020). Resilience and Vibrancy: The 2020 Data & AI Landscape. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://mattturck.com/data2020/

U.S. Small Business Administration. (2019). How Many Businesses Open and Close Each Year? Retrieved 14 June 2020, from https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/24153946/Frequently-Asked-Questions-Small-Business-2019-1.pdf

Wang, H. Z. (2016). The rise and fall of Shenqibuy, an 18-year-old's million-dollar startup. Retrieved 30 September 2020, from https://alltechasia.com/youthful-exuberance-the-rise-and-fall-of-shenqibuy-an-18-year-olds-million-dollar-startup/

Yuen, H. (2017). VC Math. Retrieved 1 October 2020, from https://hackernoon.com/vc-math-2848971a34a0

By invitation, Paul occasionally conducts guest lectures and seminars on the topics of business management, tech innovation, startups, entrepreneurship, venture capital, and financial investment.

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Last edited on 21 October 2022.