I'm such a failure....

…but I’m very happy with that!

One of my favourite quotes is, “There’s no such thing as failure, only feedback.” I’ve no idea who coined it, but judging by how often my kids hear it, they probably think it was me!

There is a serious message behind this article though. Something I’m getting more and more grumpy about as I approach my 50s.

Apparently, it’s really easy to create a business, especially according to Instagram influencers posing in front of expensive cars and nice houses: “this could all be yours…”. On LinkedIn, it’s much the same. My feed is full of people professing that all I need to do is set up a Claude account, add in a few skills from various gurus, and I should have a six figure business within a month.

Absolute poppycock.

Our story is one of multiple failures. I think I can safely say we’ve kissed a few frogs.

This article is about the stuff people don’t talk about. When it went wrong.

People know me for Optix Solutions, the agency I started at 19 and still run 26 years later, but they don’t know about all the failures along the way. I want to tell that story. Not because I want to put people off, quite the opposite. I’m a huge fan of entrepreneurship. But I want people to see what happens behind the scenes.

We’ve lost hundreds of thousands on ventures that no longer exist. They failed for many different reasons, but the one constant is that we took lessons from every single one and folded them back into other things we did.

I don’t know how well you know me, but even some of my closest friends won’t know about all of these.

Enjoy the ride!

Over the last 26 years, we’ve started lots of businesses. A couple are still operating successfully today, but most didn’t make it.

Looking back, I don’t regret any of them. In fact, some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur came from the businesses that never truly took off.

I think it’s also worth adding an important piece of context.

Every one of these ventures was launched while we were building Optix. At the time, we were growing, clients needed servicing, staff needed managing, and there was always more work to do than there were hours available in the day.

I suspect many entrepreneurs will recognise the challenge. New ideas rarely arrive when you’ve got spare capacity. They arrive when you’re already stretched. You convince yourself that with a few evenings, the odd weekend, and a bit of determination, you can build something else alongside your existing business.

Sometimes that works.

Often it doesn’t.

Looking back, many of these ventures didn’t fail because they were bad ideas. They struggled because they were competing for time, energy and attention against a business that was already demanding all three.

So here are five of the businesses that never became the success we hoped they would be, and the lessons they taught us.

Back in the early 2000s, before Facebook became a household name, my business partner, a few close friends and I launched TravellersConnected.com.

It was a platform designed to help young travellers keep their families updated on their adventures whilst travelling around the world. This was long before people were posting daily updates on social media or sharing photos and stories instantly from the other side of the globe.

We genuinely believed there was a need for it and, looking back, I still think there was.

However, whilst the idea was ahead of its time, we faced challenges in dedicating the necessary resources and management attention required to really see it grow. We were already busy building and working in other businesses and, as often happens, the urgent work won over the important work.

Ultimately, TravellersConnected never reached its full potential.

What I learned

Looking back, this venture taught me that being early can feel exactly the same as being wrong. Today, sharing travel experiences and keeping family and friends updated online is completely normal. At the time, however, the behaviour wasn’t established and we didn’t have the resources needed to educate the market. Sometimes success isn’t just about having the right idea. It’s about having it at the right moment.

As the internet began shifting towards localisation, my business partner and I created Your Jobs Board.

The idea was simple. Rather than competing with the huge national job boards, we would create hyper localised job sites. We started with Exeter and planned to franchise the model into other towns and cities around the UK.

At the time, the concept felt incredibly exciting. We could see the internet becoming more local (Google My Business had just started) and more relevant. We believed employers and candidates would value a platform focused specifically on their local area.

Whilst the concept had potential, we found it increasingly difficult to balance this new venture alongside running Optix.

In the end, the project never received the time, energy and resources required to flourish.

What I learned

One of the biggest challenges in entrepreneurship is that opportunities rarely arrive one at a time. They tend to arrive whilst you’re already busy. Your Jobs Board taught me that focus is one of the most valuable assets in business. We didn’t fail because the idea lacked potential. We failed because we couldn’t give it the attention it deserved.

With a friend from the recruitment industry, we launched Source Yourself, a platform designed to change the way hospitality businesses recruited staff.

The idea was to create a searchable database of CVs, allowing restaurants, hotels and hospitality businesses to proactively search for talent rather than waiting for applications to arrive. In many ways, it was an attempt to give employers greater control over the recruitment process.

The platform showed promise and even generated revenue. Customers understood the proposition and there was genuine interest from the market.

However, like many ventures, it reached a point where further growth required additional investment, additional people and additional focus. Unfortunately, we weren’t in a position to provide those things at the time.

Eventually, the project stalled.

What I learned

Source Yourself taught me the difference between proving demand and building a scalable business. We had customers. We had revenue. We had validation. But a business that works and a business that scales are two very different things. To get to the next level would have required more investment, more infrastructure and more commitment than we could provide at the time.

Cloud Weddings was born from a desire to simplify the wedding planning process.

The platform connected couples with wedding suppliers whilst also providing a central hub where they could manage every aspect of their wedding online. The vision was for wedding venues to offer the platform as part of their service, allowing couples to create wedding websites, manage guest lists, coordinate suppliers and organise their big day from a single location.

The concept received positive feedback from almost everyone we showed it to. People immediately understood the value and many told us they thought it was a fantastic idea.

Yet despite the enthusiasm, we found ourselves facing a familiar challenge. The business needed dedicated management, ongoing investment and sustained focus to reach scale.

Unfortunately we didn’t have quite the right partner fronting the business and it was a battle that we didn’t have the time to fight.

What I learned

Businesses require effective marketing, strong leadership and relentless execution if they are going to grow. If you’ve got the wrong person in post that could just be the nail in the coffin.

Mango Evolution was perhaps one of the most commercially interesting ventures we became involved with.

The concept centred around reverse auctions for procurement teams within larger organisations. Instead of buyers approaching suppliers individually and negotiating prices, businesses could create a procurement opportunity on the platform and invite multiple suppliers to compete for the contract.

Imagine a company needing to purchase thousands of pounds worth of office supplies such as pencils, paper or toilet rolls. They would publish the requirement through Mango Evolution and invite approved suppliers to participate. Rather than bidding upwards as in a traditional auction, suppliers would bid downwards, competing to offer the lowest price and win the contract.

At the time, it felt like a genuinely innovative way to help businesses reduce procurement costs whilst creating a more transparent purchasing process.

What made the opportunity particularly exciting was the scale. Large organisations spend millions of pounds every year through procurement departments and even small percentage savings can translate into significant financial benefits. We believed the platform had enormous potential.

Unfortunately, potential and commercial success are not the same thing.

Whilst the product itself was strong, it was never sold as effectively as it needed to be. The challenge wasn’t necessarily the technology or the proposition. The challenge was generating enough awareness and sales momentum. We weren’t directly involved in that part of the business and, ultimately, the venture never achieved the level of adoption we felt it deserved.

What I learned

Mango Evolution taught me one of the most important lessons in business. A great product is not enough.

As entrepreneurs, it’s easy to become obsessed with the product. We convince ourselves that if something is genuinely useful, the market will naturally embrace it.

The reality is often very different.

The best product doesn’t always win. The best marketed and best sold product often does. No matter how strong your idea is, if you cannot consistently communicate its value and get it in front of the right people, growth becomes incredibly difficult.

Each one of these businesses taught me something I carried into the next venture. Some taught me about timing. Others taught me about focus, investment, sales, leadership or execution. Every one of them made me a better entrepreneur.

What I’ve come to realise over the years is that ideas are rarely the limiting factor. Most entrepreneurs have more ideas than they’ll ever have time to pursue. The real challenge is having the resources, commitment and persistence to turn those ideas into sustainable businesses.

Social media often paints entrepreneurship as a straight line from idea to success. In reality, it’s usually a collection of experiments, false starts, setbacks and lessons learned the hard way.

Some businesses succeed.

Most don’t.

But every single one teaches you something if you’re willing to pay attention.

So if you’re sitting on a business idea that didn’t work out, don’t be too quick to write it off as a failure. It probably taught you something that helps make your next venture a success.

That’s certainly been true in my case.