Entrepreneurial Resilience, Noble vs Ignoble failure, Taylor Swift.
What the Japanese concept of Noble Failure teaches us about the search for meaning in entrepreneurship. The differences between noble and ignoble failure. Oh and Taylor Swift.
Last week we heard about Roger Moro’s resilience as he built Zoro Card. Subscribers spiked throughout the week and we received plenty of inbound comments from Soft Landing readers. Thank you!
This weekend, (after a personal failure to first buy the right Taylor Swift tickets, and then a failure on the part of Ticketmaster to get me those very tickets - see random musings at the end) I watched Oppenheimer and spent time reading about the concept of Nobel Failure - a Japanese perspective on failure and resilience.
So this week’s edition will look at the entrepreneur journey, discuss how entrepreneurship is one of the most Noble Pursuits, in the Japanese sense and then wrap with a brief story about a founder whose noble failure was incorrectly claimed as an ignoble failure.
Empathizing with the Founder Journey
Not everyone who reads Soft Landing is in the VC ecosystem, so I don’t want to take for granted that y’all understand why founders do what they do (hint: we’re all a little crazy).
To build their business, founders take unbelievable risks, tackle problems that have never been solved (or never been solved well enough), put their personal lives, their relationships and their personal finances as risk. They are the small few that want to build a better tomorrow. I consider my fellow founders to be amongst the most courageous people I’ve met in business.
Building products, business models, internal culture, marketing tactics - these are all highly iterative processes. We are solving problems that haven’t been solved before, so no one has the right answer (yet). Therefore we experiment, evaluate, try again.
Lean Start-up, one of the modern bibles of start-up culture, taught us all that the faster we iterate upon our ideas, the faster the path to success. This also applies to one of the most stressful parts of entrepreneurship - fundraising.
How often have you heard “no” and given up on an idea?
Founders are willing to, and must pitch an idea, thousands of times, to build support, gain investment, attract talent, maintain employee engagement through tough moments. Often this pitch falls on dead ears, meets resistance, and yet we persevere.
When you factor in the perspective of being a minority founder, the entrepreneurial journey takes on a Sisyphean quality – a constant uphill battle that demands remarkable resilience. A 2022 study by Diversity VC found that less than 2% of venture funding overall goes to minorities.
You may read this and struggle to find empathy. After all, this is capitalism. Isn’t all this the cost of the profit motive? You may look at a failed founder and disagree with their personal views, you may even think their failures were obvious and predictable. Some of my own failures were exceedingly obvious in hindsight.
So how can an entrepreneur find purpose in the struggle?
Noble Failure teaches us that failure is kinda the point.
Embracing the realities of entrepreneurship, with all the highs and inevitable lows, is akin to embracing the profound philosophy behind the Japanese concept of "Noble Failure."
Just as my journey in building and leading Daylight has illuminated, entrepreneurship is a discipline where setbacks and failures are not just inevitable but also invaluable. The Japanese notion of "Noble Failure" resonates powerfully in this context, mirroring the understanding that failure, when approached with the right mindset, holds its own kind of success.
"Noble Failure" is a philosophy that values the effort and learning gained from trying, even if the outcome isn't successful. It emphasizes that taking on challenges, despite the risk of failure, is honorable because it leads to personal growth and valuable insights. The core idea is that setbacks are not shameful but rather stepping stones towards improvement. It encourages a positive perspective on failure, highlighting the wisdom and experience gained in the process.
The opposite, "Ignoble failure" refers to a failure that is marked by dishonorable or unethical behavior, actions, or intentions. It suggests that the failure is not simply a result of circumstances or honest mistakes, but rather a result of unethical choices or behaviors.
Lately, I’ve seen a conflation of Noble and Ignoble failures.
Don’t mistake poor business judgement for a moral failing
It’s tempting to conflate a failing business with a moral failing, generally of leadership. Recent such conflation clearly comes from the likes of the Adam Neumanns and Elizabeth Holmeses of the world - entrepreneurs who not only failed, but who did so while knowingly making questionable moral decisions. We love stories of hubris and downfall. But assuming Ignoble Failure of a founder is incredibly harmful.
Morally Corrupt Overworked and underpaid
Recently I spoke with a founder whose website wasn’t up to date and had various incorrect regulatory statements on it. He was subjected to a media tear-down of his business that caused a lot of personal and professional hardship. Since the publisher didn’t seem to know what his intent was, they filled in the gaps and assumed negative intent. True or not, I’m sure it was successful in driving clicks and subscribers - who doesn’t love a salacious story?
I watched this unfold with great interest. The company received little empathy and instead its mistakes were seen as deliberate - ignoble failures. The founders were accused of fraud, of deliberately misleading customers and of misrepresenting the company to the market. I spoke with both a founder and an investor in this business during this process. Frankly, I heard a very different story - a noble failure. I heard about a small team, trying to balance hundreds of competing priorities who dropped the ball operationally.
All I could think was ‘give the guy a break!’
We know that success is highly valued, particularly in Silicon Valley, and failure is often seen as a sign of inadequacy or personal flaw. This perspective leads to judgments and assumptions about a person's character based on their failures. However, it's crucial to separate failure from morality, as failure is a natural part of growth and learning, devoid of inherent moral implications.
In doing so we leave behind stronger entrepreneurs and a stronger ecosystem.
Rob.
Weekly Musings:
I read a post from Kate Palencsar Partner at Athemis Group about founder vulnerability that resonated with me. She said “Founders can't talk about how hard it is because that signals poorly to customers or investors. It's a lot to keep inside”. She’s right.
Thanks to the community members who wrote me with tips on loan originations, secondary marketplaces (acquired.com). I never got any bits on navigating failure in corporate context - perhaps that’s too challenging to figure out.
The end of my Eras Era. So yes, I had various SNAFUs in getting tickets to Taylor Swift. First I bought the tickets in Mexican Pesos in a rush and as a result of an exchange rate miscalculation I ended up spending an order of magnitude more than I wanted. Those are some expensive VIP tickets.
I created a remarkably compelling argument for why my completely uninterested husband should join me for the cultural event of the month (she made earthquakes in Seattle, after all). So after spending much of my personal relationship capital convincing him to go and dance for 3.5 hours, Ticketmaster ended up sending us two tickets that were 200 seats apart resulting in a refund and no Taytay for me. Noble failure indeed.