I "Failed Fast" So Many Times I Never Actually Built Anything

How Silicon Valley's favorite advice became an excuse for giving up.

The Advice That Became an Alibi

"Fail fast… save resources for what matters."

I heard this so much over my past 10 years in the tech startup industry that it became my business philosophy. And my business excuse.

Because somewhere between "learning quickly" and "iterating rapidly," I turned into a professional quitter who called abandonment "data collection."

I "failed fast" on so many projects that I never actually built anything. While I was busy learning from my failures, competitors who stuck with boring, obvious ideas built empires.

When "Fail Fast" Became "Fail First"

The problem isn't the advice, it's how people apply it.

Real "fail fast" means: "Let's get this in front of the people who need it and find out what we're doing wrong before we throw time and money at this."

Fake "fail fast" means: "This got hard, so let me call it a learning experience and move on to something more exciting."

I did both. And I can tell you the difference is expensive.

The Rationalisation Game

I became a master at making quitting sound strategic.

I didn't "quit"… that sounded too dramatic and final. I "parked" projects. I kept things "open-ended" even though I never went back.

"The data demonstrates that I don't understand the problem" became my favourite way to say "I got bored."

"My solution doesn't solve anything" was code for "I don't want to do the hard work of making it better."

"I don't have the resources to pursue correction" meant "I'd rather start something new than fix something difficult."

The Boredom Problem

Most founders won't admit that they don't fail fast because of data. They fail fast because things get less exciting.

They expect the market to give them shortcuts instead of doing the hard work themselves. They get stuck analysing data that doesn't matter, which further convinces them their idea sucks.

When it never did. They just did.

Actual Failure vs. Hitting Your First Tree

There's a difference between actual failure and just hitting the first obstacle.

Actual failure is when you didn't correctly identify a problem, you created a problem instead of identifying one. Or you created a solution that missed the mark, solving something nobody had an issue with in the first place.

An obstacle is when you get those things right, but you don't penetrate the market. You hit the target but not hard enough.

You're hacking a tree with a dull blade. Things need tightening up, sharpening. You need to take the data and come back stronger.

But most people don't want to sharpen the blade. They want to find a different tree.

While I Was "Learning," Someone Else Was Earning

This is so common, especially when people over-engineer everything to be "better, faster, stronger, more exciting, more flashy" when all someone needed was something accessible.

I don't need to drive to an automatic car wash when the kid next door shows up with a bucket, a cloth, and some "industry lingo" I don't quite understand.

Now I can continue with whatever I was doing at home instead of sitting awkwardly among other customers who would rather have the neighbor's kid cleaning their car too.

While I was building the perfect automated car wash experience with AI-powered soap dispensers and subscription billing models, the kid with the bucket was making money.

The Three-Year Delusion

I spent three years fighting with people when they told me my solution was shit because I was emotionally invested in making my version work.

But that's not what "fail fast" is supposed to teach you. It's supposed to teach you to listen to the data, not fight with it.

Nobody knows how well something will do until it's put in front of the people you want money from. So the less time and money you spend to get the data you need, the better.

You want criticism. You aren't looking for a chance to explain things better. You're not trying to convince anyone, you're trying to learn why they aren't convinced.

The Real Cost of Constant Starting

"Fail fast" costs great ideas when you don't apply it correctly.

It costs momentum when you mistake difficulty for failure.

It costs market opportunity when you abandon things that just needed persistence.

Most expensively, it costs you the experience of actually finishing something difficult. The skill of pushing through the boring middle. The confidence that comes from sticking with something when it gets hard.

I became excellent at starting projects and terrible at growing them.

The Competitors Who Didn't Fail Fast Enough

While I was iterating and pivoting and slowly learning from failure, my competitors were doing something much less expensive: succeeding slowly.

They stuck with “boring ideas”. They didn't over-engineer solutions. They didn't abandon projects the moment they required actual work.

They built simple solutions to obvious problems and refined them over years, not months.

They understood that most business success comes from doing ordinary things consistently, not from failing quickly at extraordinary things.

When "Fast" Becomes "Forever"

The irony of "fail fast" is that when you do it wrong, you never actually finish anything.

You become addicted to the excitement of starting… the phase where everything seems possible and nothing is difficult yet.

But businesses aren't built in the starting phase. They're built in that middle phase. The phase where "fail fast" people usually quit.

What I Should Have Done

Instead of failing fast on 20 projects, I should have succeeded slowly on two.

Instead of collecting data on why things didn't work, I should have collected revenue on things that did.

Instead of parking great ideas when they got difficult, I should have pushed through the difficult part to see what was on the other side.

Because the other side of difficult isn't failure. It's usually success that required more work than you wanted to put in.

The Real Lesson

"Fail fast" is great advice when applied correctly: test quickly, learn cheaply, iterate rapidly.

"Fail fast" is terrible advice when used as an excuse to quit every time something requires sustained effort.

The goal isn't to fail quickly. The goal is to succeed eventually.

And eventually requires sticking with something long enough to see it work.

Someone Paid The School Fees

Years of starting projects instead of finishing them. Market opportunities abandoned for the sake of "learning quickly." The expertise that comes from seeing something through to success, traded for the empty experience of failing efficiently.

Don't make the same expensive mistake. Sometimes the best thing you can do is fail slowly by succeeding eventually.

This is the kind of expensive lesson we share every Friday. The advice that sounds smart but costs everything when applied wrong.

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