How do you overcome fear of failure in entrepreneurship?

I've seen this from both perspective - doing my own gig & meeting 1000's of founders during my T-Hub stint. Some of my learnings & advice - 1) Acknowledge the fact that it takes a lot of guts to embark on doing a startup, take pride. 2) In entrepreneurship , everything is a learning, success or failure. Failure is actually a bigger learning than success. 3) Failure actually makes you stronger for your next venture, if you still want to fight it out & give it another shot. 4) Even if not, you have acquired an experience which will make you a better leader in the corporate world. 5) You can now better appreciate other founders and support their journey. So net-net, nothing much to worry about :) just enjoy the ride

The easiest way to fail is to not acknowledge the fear of failure. In Entrepreneurship, the fear of failure trumps anything and everything and it is important to accept the fear of unknown. Here's how you can acknowledge your fears: - Do not overestimate your abilities to give yourself a sense of security - Pin down the challenges that you think you won't be able to solve - Accept the difference between theoretical knowledge and practical work - Acknowledge your limitations! (Most Important)

My childhood dream was to start my own business. At 28, I developed a solid business plan, but on the eve of quitting my job, I got cold feet. I called my father—a fiscally conservative, risk-averse, mid-level executive—for advice. I was certain he'd advise me against quitting my job on this risky venture. Instead, he asked me this simple but infuriating question: "What's the worst that can happen?" "I won't be able to pay my bills, dad!" I replied. "And then what?" he asked. "I'd lose my car and house?" "And then?" he asked again. "Well, I'd have to file for bankruptcy and get a job at a shoe store!" I shouted. Would that be so bad? "No. I'd make one hell of a salesperson." That was 30 years ago. My firm is doing great! Thanks dad

Being an entrepreneur is tough - you are building something without a blueprint and with limited resources, hoping for the best. Of course, you will fail along the way, and that's ok. It's "how" you fail that actually matters the most. The smart way to go about failure is to embrace it. Whatever you do, try to create a decision-making tree for each process. When you make an assumption, test it, prove it wrong, adjust your course, and repeat. Over time, this will both perfect your model and make your navigation skills sharper. This, in turn, will give you the confidence you were looking for when you were starting out. Everybody is scared, be one of the few who do it anyway. Good luck!

The good thing about fear of failure is that it diminishes with every single step that you take towards achieving the goals you set out for! Once you start setting some realistic goals that can be measured and achieved within the stipulated time then you will go through the following journey: - After achieving your first goal: its a good start but I am still nervous - After achieving second goal: I think it's working I may be able to pull this off - After achieving third goal: I feel confident in my abilities to get through this - After achieving final goal: Oh my God! I did it yes!!!! With each goal you achieve your motivation increases and your fear of failure decreases.

I couldn't stress enough that goal setting and having a vision is so important. Setting SMART goals - ones that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound are also part of this. If they aren't SMART goals, you will ever not hit them or you will but just out of luck. Vision & goal setting isn't meant to be easy, you have to really understand what you want to achieve. Once you have these your fear will disappear and you will hit your goals.

The biggest mistake I see founders make is wanting to be the solo genius hero that knows everything, creates everything, and has all the right answers. Building a successful business requires learning from the old masters and coaxing them to hand down their knowledge, experiences, and wisdom to overcome the inevitable obstacles, financial challenges, and mental frustrations required to build a stable business. When I co-founded my firm in 1992, I wrote a dozen of my business heroes carefully constructed letters to see if they'd be willing to advise me. Ten never responded, but two leaders took me under their wing and played a big role in making me who I am today. Building a board of advisors is the best business decision I ever made.

Building a support network of mentors, peers, and team members can be a significant asset in overcoming fear. Regular feedback from trusted individuals provides perspective, encouragement, and constructive criticism. It's a way to gauge progress, identify areas for improvement, and boost confidence. Entrepreneurs don't have to face their fears alone; leaning on others for support creates a collaborative environment that fosters growth.

EXPERIMENT Like James Dyson Did you know that the inventor James Dyson had made 5,127 prototypes of his famous Dual Cyclone bag-less vacuum cleaner before settling on the model that would make him a billionaire? Experimenting means testing your new concept to learn if it really delivers value to your customer and if the business model you came up with is valid. By doing so, you validate the future business potential of your new concept. The goal of experimentation at the start of innovation is simply to learn and improve. I totally agree with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn who said, 'If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.'

Just go for it anyway despite the fear. Do what you want to do. The more time you spend sitting around thinking about what could go wrong, the less time you spend on building your dreams. Any accomplished entrepreneur or business owner that has successfully built from scratch will tell you that they dove in like a shark and went after what they wanted despite their feelings of fear. The world doesn’t wait for the indecisive, but rewards those that make valuable contributions to the world.

The best way to acknowledge your growth is to celebrate your wins and losses. Yes! celebrate your losses too. When you lose, you understand the difficulty of getting something right, you learn one way about what you were not supposed to do. So in a way, you reduced the risk. Successful entrepreneurs are not the ones who always win, but the ones who always grow. You need to grow with every win and loss and soon will come a time where you would have achieved the goal you set out for!

The most successful entrepreneurs I meet in business are not the most academically gifted or well-liked leaders. Instead, they’re more comfortable taking risks and pivoting from losses. These leaders are observant, know how to learn from wins and losses, and develop a more advanced way to play the game. Great entrepreneurs also recognize that no matter how much homework, research, and strategic planning they've done, running a business entails making bets on the future, and not all bets payout. In fact, most of them don't. But all you need is one big bet to come in. The best leaders have a sixth sense of which bets to make and which to walk away from. Steve Jobs made big bets on the iPod and iPhone, which had huge risks and huge payouts.

I’ve always liked the quote, and I don’t know who said it: I may not be able to get rid of the butterflies in my stomach, but I’ll teach them to fly in formation. Entrepreneurship is the greates rollercoaster ride, with ups snd doens, and loops. I’ve learned more from my failures than successes and they make the successes even sweeter.

If you are solving problems-worth-solving, consider converting your fear of failure into the opposite: the risk of missing a chance to solve an important problem and alleviate someone's pain (for as little as it might be). Even if you solved one person's (or few people's) struggles, that is success per-se!