Reframing Failure - Looking Back on My First Business

When we think of something as a success or failure, we generally think of the end result. Did I get what I wanted? Is this what I expected it to be? Whether it’s professionally or personally, we think of the outcome of our work as the measure of success, but what if that’s wrong? By reframing how we think of failure and success, I view taking risks in a new light. The most important example of this in my life was my first business. 

Bliss Curated Events

In 2017 a friend and I started an event planning business, Bliss Curated Events. We invested some money and a lot of time into an idea that we thought had a lot of potential. At the time, we both had full-time jobs and busy lives, but we were energized by the idea of having something that was ours.

After almost a year and a half of work, we had gained momentum but still weren’t making enough money to quit our full-time jobs. On top of that, we’d each gotten promotions, and we were spending almost all of our limited free time on the business. In the fall of 2018, we decided to take a step back and ultimately decided to close the business. 

The Feeling of Failure

It felt terrible. Our business had failed. Our wildest dreams of wealth and acclaim were lost. We were failures, or were we? We measured success by what we accomplished. Did the business make enough money to support two full-time salaries? No.

The farther we get from it, however, the more I see that first entrepreneurial venture as a huge success. We learned so much about starting a business, structure, accounting, building marketing from scratch, and managing the day-to-day of a small business. We kept our friendship, by far the most important thing we risked, and are closer today than we were when we started. 

The Only Thing I Would Change

Looking back on the experience, there isn’t much I would change. Don’t get me wrong, knowing what I know now, I would do things very differently, but the experience I had was how I learned those lessons. The only thing I would tell myself to do differently at the start of the venture is to not get caught up in expectations.

There are so many “should”s that I couldn’t let go of, things that should work, how much we should be making, how we should spend our time, the success we should be able to make happen. The stress and pressure I put on myself was the big thing making the business too difficult. We weren’t where I thought we should be, so I felt it was a failure. In the 18 months, we built and managed the business, I learned so much, and now I am so grateful for every part of that experience. 

Image: Our friends at a photoshoot to launch our photo booth.

Take Away

If the value of every experience is whether or not the end result is what you hoped it would be, then yes, some failure is inevitable. If you can take those experiences, learn and grow from them, then every experience, regardless of the result, can be successful. By framing success in this way, the fear of failure loses its power, and risks are worth so much more. Not trying, not learning, not growing is instead the biggest risk of failure.