What is the top coulda, shoulda but didn't do thing that woulda prevented a big failure in 2015?

Dr. Goulston Speaker, Author, Founder Coach, Consultant

January 2nd, 2016

A mistake ceases to be a mistake when you learn the lesson it is trying to teach and then follow through with what you learned. The challenge it getting through all the wasted time and energy blaming others or beating up on yourself. Successful people make mistakes, they just don't keep making the same mistakes.

Will Tran

January 2nd, 2016

The biggest one to me is to hire the right people! Learn to tell if people are lying to you and learn to negotiate. Get involved and don't trust everything. It's important to delegate but don't completely lose sight of what is going on in the trenches.
MVP within speed and reason. You can have 2 of the 3 of quality, cost, and speed.
Just do it. I am tired of seeing startups go paralyzed waiting for the results from AB tests. They could have built things in half the time it took to run tests.

Liza Kimbo Director

January 3rd, 2016

Trusting deep pocketed investors to develop a growth plan, and giving them majority shareholding because the plan looked so good on paper! One year later, they lost interest as the plan would take much longer than they originally anticipated. They abruptly pulled out, leading to a long painful separation process, huge legal bills and a company nearly crippled with debt and lost opportunities.

Lessons learnt:

- develop your own plan, let investors come in, buy into the plan and invest in that plan according to what is realistic and within your capacity. Companies take years to grow to become large significant businesses with good market share. No one can make this happen overnight just because they have money to throw at you.

- Do not give up majority shareholding to another single entity unless you are willing to completely walk away from the company you founded.