Good Founders Fail
Lessons From My 10-Year Stint as a Serial Failure
I remember the first time I felt the real weight of failure. It was when I turned 30, a full decade into my life as a “founder” (note the quotes), and what did I have to show for it? Absolutely nothing. I was deep in doubt, questioning every decision I’d made over the past 10 years. Should I have just taken a cushy corporate job out of uni and climbed the safe, stable career ladder? Should I have stayed abroad instead of diving back into the chaos that is Nigeria? Maybe I shouldn’t have chased the “next unicorn” dream at all?
That year hit me hard—like an emotional freight train. But, strangely enough, it was probably the most important year for me as a founder. It helped me see something crucial: good founders fail. And if you want to be a good founder, you’ve got to get cozy with failure.
So, let’s break down three classic flavors of founder failures. Grab a pen (or some popcorn) and settle in.
Fail to Launch: The Not-So-Fabulous First Act
This is the first kind of failure you’ll encounter on the Path to Founder Enlightenment™. I call it the “all talk, no product” stage. Picture this: You’ve got a mind-blowing startup idea for an app that can solve world hunger, track Elon Musk’s tweets, and still make you coffee. The design mockups look amazing, the pitch is airtight, but... there’s one tiny problem. You can’t build it.
Or more accurately, you can’t build it alone. Or even more accurately, you can’t build it alone and without money. So, there I was: just me, my co-founder, and a severe lack of funds.
After months of late nights, caffeine, and wishful thinking, we’d end up with... nothing. We’d tell ourselves, “Maybe we need more funding or more people.” So our “groundbreaking” idea would just sit there, collecting dust, on the ground…
What I learned: A good MVP (Minimum Viable Product) should be so basic it’s almost embarrassing. Think of it as a quick and dirty prototype you can whip up in a week—two weeks max. If it takes longer, it’s not an MVP; it’s a slow train to Failville.
Here’s the kicker: Your MVP doesn’t even have to be an app. Picture this: Let’s say you’re planning a startup that offers meal delivery services to busy professionals. Most would go straight for an app with order tracking, payment integration, and custom recipes. But all you need to start is a Google Form for people to fill in their grocery needs, an Excel sheet to track orders, and a WhatsApp number to send meal plans manually. Payments? Just use bank transfers and confirm payments as the first step.
If people still pay for your “primitive” setup, congrats—you’ve got a winner. Now that’s a good MVP.
Fail to Grow: When Users Play Hard to Get
Next comes the infamous “Where are the users?” phase. You’ve managed to piece together a scrappy MVP—yay, you! But now, where are the users? Why aren’t they storming your app like a Black Friday sale? You thought they’d be lining up, but instead, they’re ghosting you like a bad Tinder date.
So, what do you do? You and your co-founder hit the digital pavement—cold emailing, sliding into DMs on Instagram, bombarding Reddit threads, and even posting TikTok (yes, we did TikTok marketing before it was cool). But after all that, you’ve got—drumroll, please—barely anyone using your product.
The hard truth? A lot of our products didn’t take off because we didn’t care about them. Getting users is always tough, but it’s a bit easier when you actually care about the problem you’re solving.
What I learned:
Work on what you care about. Passion is the only thing that’ll keep you sending emails when no one’s replying.
Solve an actual problem. Too many times, we were solutions looking for problems. We’d invent some imaginary issue for an imaginary group of users, only to find out—surprise!—they either didn’t exist or didn’t care enough.
It’s better to find a problem first and then build a solution around it, rather than the other way around. I know, revolutionary stuff, right?
Fail to Focus: Chasing Capital Instead of Customers
Finally, after all those bumps and bruises, you’ve got a solid product. But like any ambitious founder, you’re now obsessed with getting VC money. If only you could land a spot in Y Combinator (Oluwa, do it for your boy), or catch the eye of a big angel investor, you’d be golden! But newsflash: The odds of getting into YC are around 1.5%—you’re better off finding true love on Lagos Tinder.
Even if you do manage to snag an investor, it doesn’t mean success is guaranteed. Because here’s the dirty little secret: if your idea of “making it” is raising money, you’re not building a startup—you’re building a fundraising habit.
What I learned: Define success by how much better your product is today than it was yesterday—not by how much cash you’ve raised. If your product solves a real problem, users (and money) will come. You won’t need investors; you’ll just use them to scale faster.
In Summary: Embrace Failure, Embrace Growth
So, there you have it. Failure is the rite of passage for any founder worth their salt. If you haven’t failed, you probably haven’t pushed hard enough. Every single stumble has made me a better founder—So, until I find the right problem to tackle, I’ll be here—failing forward and collecting battle scars.
Until then, here’s to failing spectacularly, learning immensely, and eventually building something that’ll make people ask, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
See you at the next stumble! Cheers!
This was a great read, thanks!
Failing forward is key!!