Ella: I love this topic. I love it. I think it is something that everybody could... We could all use to, you know, learn how to do that without feeling awful. Because it's so... obvious. You sometimes fail.

Neven: If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough. Well, I have to say that I'm not a good failer. Failee. Not a good loser. I don’t like failing. I guess nobody does. Well, maybe some people are better than others, but I am not good at it.

Ella: Well, same with me. So, let’s see. All right. So, tell me... You don’t like failing. I don’t like failing. Nobody likes to fail. But tell me why it is important to fail?

Neven: First of all, thank you for picking up on this topic and liking it because I think it’s essential. It is so important because everybody can benefit from it. Indeed.

I started my business a long time ago, almost 30 years. Many things have changed since then, including my thinking about my business and doing business in general. But this is one of the key lessons I have learned. And honestly, I find it quite encouraging, and I am starting to enjoy it. I think this is one of the most important lessons in business.

I mean, success is great. It’s nice to win. Everyone enjoys winning. And when you're happy, you tend to assume that you did everything right. But if you did everything right, there is no room for improvement. So, it follows that you do not learn from success.

And, of course, this is a fallacy. Learning from success is possible; you have to go back and see why you have succeeded and go deep into at least some kind of analysis to make sure you understand, and it wasn’t just luck.

With failure, it is different. When you fail, it forces you to think, reconsider, and re-evaluate. It is natural for humans, like animals, to learn from mistakes. That is how evolution works.

So, it is only natural. And if it's natural, then, let's use this practice and learn from it. So, let’s talk about failures now.

I believe there are different ways to fail. It's not just a single type, a single failure. I mean, you could distinguish between failures. I want to discuss two of the more interesting types of failures here.
The first type is when you worked, you prepared, you made decisions and did the right thing, as you thought, and then you failed.

And then you start pounding your head and thinking, why didn't I do this and why didn't I do that and stuff like that? It is devastating. However, if you think hard, you realize that you could not have done anything better. If you could go back in time, even with all the experience that you have now, if you had the same information that you used to have back then, you would’ve done the same. At one point, you become fully aware of that.

In a situation like that there is no sense in beating yourself up. You did the best, that's it. And then the interesting part is not the decision not to beat yourself up. Many people would come to that conclusion very quickly. The interesting part is to realize something very, very different and that is to realize that you WILL fail.
Whatever you do, no matter how much you prepare, in real life, not everything depends on you. So, sooner or later you're going to fail. So, it is much, much better, to get used to the idea and prepare for it, when it happens. Prepare for success, but also prepare for failure. There is nothing wrong with that.

Ella: I like that.

Neven: Right. It's easy to prepare for success – you write your victory speech and feel good about it. However, preparing for failure requires a bit more skill.

One of my favorite authors in the business, Nassim Taleb, has come up with the Black Swan Theory. He takes it to the extreme, saying he only prepares for failure. He works in financial markets, where he believes everything will crash eventually if you wait long enough.

But that's an extreme view, and not very practical in my experience. We are not trying to revel in failure. That’s not normal. The key skill is realizing that failure is part of real business and real life. The goal isn't to get used to it, the goal is not to forget about it, and the important goal is to make sure that no failure is fatal!

In business, some failures are bigger than others. They all cost time, money, and resources. But the key is ensuring no project failure can destroy your entire business.

There are two steps to take to do that. First, mentally prepare yourself to fail, no matter what. I have a great example of this, but I'll tell you later. It's quite funny.

Second, when you're doing strategic planning, think about what could go wrong. Make sure no potential failure can cripple your entire business. Always have a backup plan.

Always have something to fall back on. All right? And I think this is a very important skill. And you don’t have to wait to go to business school. I think it's not difficult to teach yourself or to train yourself, so to speak. And it will work wonders for you.

That was the first type of failure that I wanted to talk about. Now, the second one. The second type of failure is, I think, even more interesting.

I am an entrepreneur and I'm a self-starter. We grew through the years. We're a global company now, we have customers around the globe.

If you are like me, and after you have done all that, and have accomplished so many things, as an entrepreneur, it's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you're smarter than everyone else. I mean, you wouldn't start your own business if you didn't think that, right? You thought you knew something better than others to start that new business. And if you are very smart, you are bound to be able to predict what the market will need and what customers will want.

And that is a fallacy. That is the biggest mistake that you can make in the long term. You probably know a few things better than others. You have expertise in a few areas, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're much smarter than others.

One thing is for sure, you will never be able to make decisions instead of others. This is a very common mistake. And here, I'm speaking from experience.

I have a story about that. Neterra invested in a project we called White Label DTH some years ago.
We were the first to come up with the idea of providing satellite direct-to-home services as a service to telecom operators so that they can start on their own without investing millions of dollars into equipment and other capex. We came up with the idea. We saw the opportunity. I presented it at industry forums. We were the first. It was so nice for the operators to have such a service they couldn’t afford to do by themselves, and they could buy it from us.

That blinded me. In my mind, the market was full of potential customers. For me, that was enough!

And I invested a considerable amount of money. In fact, my investment capabilities were taken for a few years ahead. I spent all the money. We did everything that we needed to do. And we were ready for the prime time.

And then, ... nobody responded. Only one company half-heartedly started but was not ready to invest time and money. I expected to have at least 10, 20, or 30 customers. Big customers too, spend tens of thousands of dollars monthly. It was supposed to be a big business.
But it didn't pick up. It didn't start. It didn't fly.

Funny enough, this story developed unexpectedly. I got a call from this African company that needed exactly what I had built.

We signed up this beautiful contract and we started working for them for exactly what I had envisioned. For me at the time, that was a proof of concept. ‘See, I was right. I was able to do it. I had this beautiful, good customer. It worked.’

But with time, I realized that was wrong. You don't have a business model with only one customer. That's not true.

The end of the story is: we didn't lose. But if it weren’t for this particular customer, we might have been in a very bad situation.

Now, looking back, I'm not taking the African customer as a proof of concept. I'm looking at it as a lucky streak, a bluebird, a project that saved my day.

But it was much more of a coincidence than something that I should have relied upon. The big market that I was expecting didn't materialize at all. So, my major lesson from the whole story is - never think you are smarter than the market.

You may see the opportunity and potential customers might be interested. It might be in their best interest to buy this. But you have to prepare and talk to them and get preliminary feedback and maybe even some commitments that if you do it, they will participate.

Entrepreneurs often overlook business development and product development fundamentals in their excitement for new ideas. A great concept isn't enough; commercial viability matters too.

Don't underestimate the feedback you receive from the universe. You should have your finger dipped into the market to be sure that you are well-positioned, and that you are the right person to do this. Otherwise, you will fail.

So that was the second lesson.

Now, the first funny story I mentioned to you. We were trying to sign a contract to get an MVNO going here in Bulgaria. This is a mobile virtual operator. And we were supposed to be the first in the market, too. We were negotiating with the mobile operators, and they didn't want to give it to us because they had competition concerns.

But the funny conversation was with one of the CEOs of a mobile operator here. At some point, he decided to be honest with me and said ‘No, I'm not going to give you an MVNO’. I asked him why, and I had all the reasons why he should give it to me. He said, ‘I am not sure that you will succeed’.

I was stupefied. I was like, what do you mean? You're not sure? I am not sure that I will succeed, either.
“How can you be sure that I will succeed?” I asked. “Do you only do things that you're sure are going to succeed?” He was like, “Yeah, of course!”

It sounded like a joke to me. He was the CEO of one of the largest companies around here. I think no one will ever be successful with such thinking. But I also realized that was part of life too. Some companies are too big to fail. Most, however, are like me – we must work hard and take risks and fail from time to time, to succeed!
You have to make important decisions every single day. And some of those decisions will fail. And you must be ready for that. Otherwise, you cannot progress. There is no progress without failure. That is a complete fallacy.

Ella: So, we're all going to fail. Don't let it kill you. Failure is part of life. If you cannot avoid it, you can just lay back and enjoy it. Is that your point?

Neven: You don't enjoy it. You just live with it. Failure will happen. You just must learn to live with failures, not by accepting failures all the time, but by knowing that they will happen.

Everything changes. That's one of the basic laws of the universe. If everything changes, and you have failed, well, next time you may succeed.

If you have succeeded, well, next time be careful. Everything changes. If you accept that, then no failure is a failure, and no success is permanent. That's the point.

Ella: How do you deal with the embarrassment of failure in a professional sense?

Neven: Oh, I don't know. You must ask a psychologist about that. But certainly, don't get drunk.

Ella: Are you sure? Because that usually seems to work at least for one night.

Neven: Well, maybe it's just me. I don't like getting drunk. It doesn't work for me. But I go and run. I go and kayak in white water and do all kinds of stuff like that. This is my best way of dealing with failures.

Ella: When you're going, running, kayaking, or something, are you distracting yourself or doing something that helps your ego deal with the bruise?

Neven: There are two things. First, your ego needs to know that you can do something right. When I am down, I just go and wash the dishes. And I say to myself, see? At least I can do something right!
The other thing is to feel part of something big and something that will not fail you. I would go running, and whitewater kayaking.

You don't talk down to yourself while you are in the middle of the biggest white-water stream, and you can drown yourself if you're not careful. You are part of the water, part of the energy. Nature always works.

Ella: In a company, somebody has a project or a big idea and that project fails. Their colleagues are making fun of them. They're having to deal with the embarrassment. What is your advice?

Neven: Well, that's very difficult and people need somebody to support them in such a situation.
I have an employee here and he always had problems with money. A couple of times he came to me and wanted to receive loans from the company to repay some debts. I thought he had some gambling problem.

We gave him money, he repaid it. Once he decided to share. He told me he doesn't have any problems with gambling. A long time ago, he made a mistake.
He started a business with a friend. Unfortunately, the venture failed, costing them hundreds of thousands of money. He shouldered the entire debt, putting his family through financial hardship for years. He felt bad about it. He felt like a failure himself.

I was amazed. I told him: ‘You, my friend, have failed and you have survived. You must be proud of this because how many people didn't even try? And you were brave enough to try it. Well, you failed. Not a big deal. You see - you asked, we helped and you repaid. That's it. But now you know. Next time you'll know what to do better.’ I told him.

And he's one of the best and most loyal and hardworking people that I've seen. So, in a situation like that, don't look at the guys that laugh at you. Just find people who support you. And you can always find people around who support you.

Discover more of Neven Dilkov's original articles by visiting his page on the Forbes Business Council website.