My worst business failures

I had about seven different business failures before my eighth business finally succeeded. So basically when I was in school, every year I would cook up some kind of new money-making [music] scheme. First, there was like freelance web design, then there was this pyramid affiliate marketing scheme, then there was this online forum that was going to teach teenagers how to do martial arts and lock picking and [music] like spy skills cuz I was super into like the

Cherub and Alex Rider books. Then there was this other thing that was this other sort of pyramid scheme, then there was affiliate marketing for Starcraft build orders like Protoss build orders, didn't make any money from it. I tried making an online game, that really turned out to be way harder than I thought. And so I dabbled with all of these like different [music] things trying to make money. And it was only like seven years later that,

you know, my first proper business actually succeeded where I was just tutoring kids on how to get into med school. And that was the business that first took me to 10,000 pounds in revenue and then 80,000 and then 150,000 the following year. And so that business was really the thing that taught me the ropes of entrepreneurship. But if it hadn't been for the string of seven failures before that, I don't think I would've landed [music] on

that idea and been able to execute it as well as I did. So I don't view those seven failures as as like a waste of time or anything cuz it was super fun and I learned skills every time. [music] There's a phrase I really like which is either your business is growing or you are. You know, if you're trying to make money and it's not really working for you yet, don't worry. You are growing, your skills

are improving, and as long as you stick with it, eventually you're basically guaranteed to succeed as long as you're sort of putting one step in front of the other and adjusting course as you get new data.