Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.
If you are a new startup company, try not to arouse the interest or suspicion of your competition; especially if they are a bigger company. They can crush you while you are still in your startup phase. Lie low while still strengthening your bottom line.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Startups should operate discreetly and focus on their growth to avoid attracting unwanted attention from larger competitors.
Richard Branson's quote emphasizes the importance of humility and discretion for new startup companies. In a competitive business landscape, especially when up against larger firms, it is crucial for startups to keep a low profile while they work on building a solid foundation and strengthening their operations. By doing so, they can minimize risks and avoid prematurely inviting scrutiny that could jeopardize their chances of success.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation about startup strategies, you can use this quote to illustrate the importance of discretion.
More from Richard Branson
All quotes →It's a common misconception that money is every entrepreneur's metric for success. It's not, and nor should it be.
Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn't you have fun at work?
Values cannot be speedily forgotten if it is inconvenient or commercially expedient. Values have to have meaning and longevity; otherwise they are valueless. You cannot embrace innovation up to a point or only sometimes. Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking cords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.
Please don’t get hung up on this question of whether you need to have experience in an industry before you launch your startup.
What's the most critical factor in any business decision you'll ever have to make? Basically, it boils down to this question: If this all crashes, will it bring the whole house tumbling down like a pack of cards? One business matra remains embedded in my brain - protect the downside.
Similar quotes
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.
If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.
You have family-owned businesses that have been around for 500 years. You cannot name a corporation that survives intact for even a few decades.
On the simplest level, telecommuting makes it harder for people to have the kinds of informal interactions that are crucial to the way knowledge moves through an organization. The role that hallway chat plays in driving new ideas has become a cliche of business writing, but that doesn't make it less true.
Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steel-making.
Entrepreneurs say in an economic boom it's actually hard to build a company because everybody's too excited and there is too much money funding too many marginal companies.