Failure, facts and data

At the beginning of a venture, and until you have reached your true product market fit [and when I mean true fit, I mean the type which generates a steady, easily repeatable and scalable revenue growth], success and failure from the outside and internally look the same.
Even after the 11 startups I co-founded pre-iROKO, and the 13 or so angel investments I’ve made through SPARK in the last 5 months, I am still relatively terrible at attempting to identify what’s working at the very early stages of a start-up. So I don’t do it anymore, I just build (and adjust) what I think needs to be built to exploit the opportunity. I ignore all early signalling. As an entrepreneur, I am naturally positive, upbeat, if you will. Whatever my latest endeavour I am working on, I refuse to entertain the notion that it is, in fact, a failure. Why? Because I want to believe. I have to believe. Belief is the very fuel for entrepreneurship. It is the ludicrous belief that you are not in the 99% of startu...