Not too many people know of my own personal entrepreneurship learning lessons or “failures”, if you will.

I think it’s important to view failures as learning lessons.

The way I see, the only true failure is giving up…

That being said, I’ve failed 5 business ideas (that either had momentum or made sales)…

I’ve:

• testing the waters of creating a non profit by creating a brand and selling decals
• sold essential oil fresheners and soy based candles (before they became mainstream)
• helped assemble a small team to try to create an app that rounded up your purchases to donate to a cause
• was in an incubator trying to create the next food thermos container
• networked with roughly 18 community development financial institution across the US to try to launch a software as a service business

Looking at all of these “failures” I can now pinpoint what I learned (and what I needed to learn at the time).

Some key lessons from these experiences are:

• You don’t need to be a non-profit to give abundantly and create change
• You should test small batches of before large scale manufacturing
• Creating multiple distribution channels is essential
• A great idea is not a great business model
• Market demand is everything

Learn from the principles of these lessons I’ve learned over the years and apply them in your business.