Comments on: The Single, Most Important Secret to Success

By: TechZing 69 – Justin.biz

TechZing 69 – Justin.biz — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:23:45 +0000

[...] idea - Email God, the possibillity of doing a daily morning show, the single most important secret to success, how to estimate the annual revenues of a company, the effect of color on driving custom [...]

By: QoTD: The Single, Most Important Secret to Success | The Brooks Review

QoTD: The Single, Most Important Secret to Success | The Brooks Review — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:14:28 +0000

[...] technology convictions QoTD: The Single, Most Important Secret to Success September 13th, 2010 Running a small business is like flying an airplane. There’s not a single thing that keeps you in the air. It’s doing a lot of things right. But the truth is that whether it’s landing a plane or running your business, you can screw some things up and still be successful. -Mike Taber [...]

By: Mike Taber

Mike Taber — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 23:53:53 +0000

Sandeep, not all successes are equal and not all failures are equal so perhaps it could have been worded a bit differently, but I stand by that statement because on average, the things you do right count less towards the positive than the things you do wrong.

For example, when you do something wrong involving a customer:
- most will never return as a customer
- many will tell their friends about the bad experience
- some will blog about it
- few will raise it to a legal level

Regardless, it is documented that it takes a lot to overcome a single bad experience if you handle it poorly the first time. ie: you failed as a company. I couldn’t find it in 30 seconds, but I recall reading a study that discussed that it takes a multiple of something like 10 positive experiences with a customer to overcome a single negative experience.

Also, the vast majority of things that you do right aren’t noticed by anyway. They are things that merely keep the ship afloat, so to speak. You can’t ignore the little things like paying bills on time, sending out invoices with the correct amounts, etc. Sure, they’re the normal, run of the mill stuff you need to do to build a business. But so is setting the airspeed in the correct range when you’re coming in for a landing. Nobody notices when you do it right, but everyone does when you don’t.

By: Sandeep Shetty

Sandeep Shetty — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 22:06:44 +0000

Would have agreed with this if you had left it at “there isn’t a secret”. The stuff about “one success is less than or equal to one failure and that the sum of your successes must be greater than or equal to the sum of your failures” is unsubstantiated.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 19:42:00 +0000

1)Passion for the product/business
1)Luck; Specifically, surviving long enough to get lucky
3)Surround yourself with trusted people smarter then you
4)Credibility
5)Supportive parents/spouse…do not underestimate this

Equally important but not as “romantic” to talk about:

a) Strong IP to create sustainable barriers to entry
b) Customer(s) willing to pay you out of the gate
c) Good mentors, whose interest is aligned with yours to succeed

These are the keys to success, or so I’ve heard…

My $0.02

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:47:46 +0000

Creating a successful technology business from scratch is not as formulaic as flying a plane. You can’t send someone to flight school for business and guarantee they will be able to create a business that creates new products afterwards. Yes, you can train someone to operate a successful franchise restaurant. Running a McDonalds is comparable to flying a plane. Running a new technology business is not comparable to a franchise restaurant or plane at all.

Tech businesses that fail, most often fail in predictable and common ways.

Those that succeed do so in unique, unpredictable ways.

To dramatically increase your chances for success, learn from the failures and avoid their mistakes.

This alone does not guarantee success, but it removes the guarantee of failure.

By: Ruben Berenguel

Ruben Berenguel — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 09:29:59 +0000

I like this analogy. Most complex one-man (or woman, of course, and by one I mean a small set of people) can be reduced to this example: you need to “average good or better”, but can be just average in some aspects without too many consequences. Of course, in the long run these “average” or “below average” problems need to be solved, or you end out of business… Or end up being bought before the buyer realises them.

Ruben

By: James Voss

James Voss — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 05:21:38 +0000

Very good story!

By: What is the single most important thing to be successful? | Karthick Gopals Home Pages

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:33:01 +0000

[...] things to get right but more importantly focusing on the most important things to get right. He explains in this post and sums it up nicely. The sum of your successes should be greater than the sum of your failures. [...]

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:11:19 +0000

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