The Economics of Failure

Have you ever rushed toward failure? Have you ever gotten up in the morning and the first thought to your mind was, “I can’t wait to fail at something today”?

Well, what is failure? Google defines it as:

• an act that fails; "his failure to pass the test"
• an event that does not accomplish its intended purpose; "the surprise party was a complete failure"

We all know the saying, “Failure isn’t an option” and I’m not quite sure who coined the saying but I want to disagree with it.

How does this tie into business and technology? Look at the worldwide numbers noted in Alan Moore’s Communities Dominate Brands blog post, “Putting 2.7 billion in context: Mobile phone users”:

• The Car - 800M
• Telephone - 1.3B
• TV - 1.5B
• CREDIT CARDS - 1.4B
• PC - 850M
• INTERNET - 1.1B
• MOBILE PHONES - 2.7B

Look at those sizes, there are millions and billions of consumers connected by some level of technology. If you were to deliver an idea/product into any one of the above and apply a 1% success rate, you would end up with a very large audience for something that could ultimately be described as a “failure” or having no chance. In some cases, you could take 1% of the 1% success rate and still end up with favorable numbers.

This brings me back to my initial question, “have you ever rushed toward failure”? When developing services for the next generation, we should embrace “failure” as an option because any idea on the distribution channels we have today has the possibility to reach lots of consumers.

Happy Failing!
5tacos