Seth Godin recently posted a fantastic article on why and how to fail.
Favorite line: “There are some significant misunderstandings about failure. A common one, similar to one we seem to have about death, is that if you don’t plan for it, it won’t happen.”
If you’re going to fail, wouldn’t you like to fail correctly?
Let it be noted that there are a lot of scams on the internet. I mean, there are a lot of scams everywhere, but the internet is a favorite medium due to its anonymity and relative novelty. So I guarantee you that you can, with little effort, find a website dedicated to separating people from their money without providing any value in return.
Almost as prevalent are sites dedicated to helping people spot and avoid those scams. Some are better than others, but almost every single one includes the line “Remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Am I the only person who doesn’t find that terribly helpful? I mean, yes, I agree that many con artists will try to lure you in with a deal that’s unsustainable. But it’s also true that a lot of weird $*!& goes on in the world. Who am I to say what’s realistic? I’m well-educated enough to know that (to a first approximation) I know essentially nothing at all. I’m also young enough to have seen dozens of rounds of
So I just don’t feel like asking my gut to make a decision is the best heuristic. I mean, in most cases I have literally no data on the topic being discussed, and that’s what your gut uses to make its judgments. So I’d be just as well off flipping a coin.
Asking my social network is even worse: my friends’ guts are equally uninformed, and it only takes one loud idiot to make a bad group judgement.
A lot of things are possible now that weren’t possible when I was born.
So there are a lot of opportunities out there that could only have been scams 30 years ago — it was simply technologically impossible to make them work — that are becoming commonplace now. “Too good to be true” has become not only a lot fuzzier, but a lot harder to judge.
So how about some new heuristics?
Ask When someone proposes an “opportunity” that you think might be a scam, ask them for more information. How does that work? Where do you get customers? Products? Funding? How do you get paid? What’s in it for me? What’s in it for you? What’s in it for them? Whether it’s a scam or not, you should never proceed until you truly understand what’s going on.
Research Of course, any con artist worth their salt can spin a line of BS that sounds convincing, so you should also research independently. Google is good for this, as is your local Business Bureau. Research the concept: are other people trying this? How long has this company been around? Does the technology work the way they said it does? Have other people tried this and liked it? Google “[Company name] scam” and see what comes up (do read whatever comes up — anyone can post a website saying that so-and-so is a scam, whether so-and-so is Bernie Madoff or the Red Cross. You have to judge for yourself whether either party consists of kooks, honest people, or some mixture of both).
Ask people in the industry Hollywood is forever creating tech-based plots that even fairly un-techie geeks like me can tell are flat-out impossible. Our guts don’t have enough data to make good judgement calls on most things, but there’s someone out there who can make a good judgement call on anything. So find someone who knows business to ask about this “investment opportunity”, or someone who knows tech to ask about this new “polarization regulator”.
Perform a Risk Analysis Still not sure? What do you have to lose? No, really, what do you have to lose? Knowing what you’re risking is a huge part of determining the best course of action. Plus, you get a nifty free download. :)
Let’s start making assessments on the basis of facts instead of fear.
In the last post I proposed that sometimes predictability is risky: when the “predictable outcome” is failure, you’re better off taking a chance on something that at least has a chance of success. We also discussed two examples: the playoff for MTG Player of the Year, and the last-second game-winning shot in a sports competition.
Lousy jobs
Hate your job, but stick with it because it’s “safer”?
Probability you’ll hate your job if you stick with this one: 100%
Probability you’ll hate your job if you look for another one, or make your own: 50%
Your job has much greater risk of frustration, depression, and misery.
New businesses
People like to make the same kinds of businesses as already exist, because they know that there’s a demand for it.
It’s a good idea to make sure there’s demand for your business. But doing so by competing in a crowded field is kinda crazy. Do you really want to be competing with Starbucks? With Wal-Mart?
The thing is, let’s be honest: you can’t compete with Starbucks. Almost guaranteed. If you go up against them, you will fail.
If you start a totally crazy business — like birthday parties for pets — there’s a chance you will fail. There’s also a chance you’ll find an untapped market that you can dominate easily since you have no competition.
Probability of succeeding with a coffee shop: 1%
Probability of succeeding with a birthday party for pets business: 50%.
New Products
When making a new product, most companies like to copy their competitors. Making an MP3 player? Look at what your competitors are making, and make a device that’s as close as possible to that.
Who didn’t follow that advice? Apple. I mean, look at the math. If you make a knock-off product, you’re guaranteed to sell a few units, but you’re guaranteed not to sell very many, since someone else already beat you to the market. And you’re going to spend millions on R&D and advertising. The only way to make money on that is if you sell lots of units, not just a few. Apple put the effort in to make an MP3 player that was completely different from their competitors’, and hit it out of the park. (Yes, there were MP3 players before iPods. They just didn’t catch on. Companies copied them anyway).
If the iPod had been a flop? Well, you’re investing millions anyway. Honestly, the difference between losing $1,000,000 and losing $900,000 isn’t that significant, and that’s what you’re risking with the knock-off product. Whereas the difference between making $100,000 and $10,000,000 is pretty darn significant.
Probability of making money on a knock-off product: .5%
Probability of making money on a brand-new, unique product: 50%
Still, there are a lot of situations in which predictable really does mean safe. How do you tell?
With this simple questionnaire! (Free Risk Analysis Download)
What’s the downside risk? If it all goes to heck in a handbasket, if Murphy steps in and your worst nightmares come true, what do you stand to lose? Money? Time? Reputation?
What’s the magnitude of the downside risk? Whatever you stand to lose, how much do you stand to lose? Usually this is your initial investment: if it will take you four hours a week to write a blog, then you stand to lose four hours a week. If it will take $1,000 to get in on this investment, you stand to lose $1000. If it will take you $100 to start this business, and you’ll be able to tell by the end of the month whether it will succeed, then you stand to lose $100, a month, and the respect of all your so-called friends who are lining up to say “I told you so”.
What’s the probability of failure?
In most cases, you’re making this up. I’m not asking for an exact number, just a gut feel. Very high? Fairly now? Fair-to-middling?
What’s the upside risk?
If this succeeds, what would you get? Money? Fame? Fast cars? Attractive members of your preferred sex volunteering to clean your house?
What’s the magnitude of the upside risk?
If this took off like you secretly hope for, if everything went right
and you were an overnight success, how much of that awesome stuff would you get? Hundreds of dollars? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? Your name known in every household in your town? Your country? The world? (I’ll leave the attractive housekeepers to your imagination).
What’s the probability of success?
Again, this is normally impossible to calculate, but make your best guess. Probable? Not bloody likely? Yeah-maybe-possible?
What’s the alternative?
Finally, what will happen if you don’t take this risk at all? What if you let sleeping dragons lie, ignore this opportunity, and continue with your life as it is right now?
Whatever units you used for your upside/downside risk (dollars, days, hot chicks/hunks), express the status quo in those units. How much money will you have if you continue with this job/ don’t start a business/ buy apple products instead of apple stock? How many fast cars do you have currently?
Resources for Further Reading
Play it safe … and experiment
What is “safe”?
In the investment world, a safe investment is one that doesn’t move very much. It’s not very volatile. It’s predictable.
We like predictable. They’ve done studies that show how humans (and chimpanzees) like to pick the certain choice, even when the less-certain choice has a better chance of high benefit. We can get a little more excited about random chance when we have the chance to gain money (see: Las Vegas), but when it comes to potentially losing something, we shut right down. We hate chance. We hate uncertainty. We want to be safe. We want to know what will happen.
Overall, the safe = less volatile thing is a pretty good rule of thumb. As far as saving time and mental energy while yielding reasonably accurate results, it does a good job, most of the time.
But like any rule of thumb, it’s wrong sometimes. This post is about when it’s wrong.
In the competition for MTG Player of the Year, Guillaume Matignon faced a bad situation: the cards he had were simply not as good as the cards his opponent had. They were good, and made a strong, consistent deck, but unfortunately they made a strong deck that was consistently slower than his opponent’s.
So he had a choice. He could play that strong, consistent deck. This is the “safe” option: it has a very predictable outcome. But that outcome is that he loses.
Or he could play a less consistent deck. One that — if it works — can work spectacularly and win him the game and — if it doesn’t work — will cause him to lose the game much more quickly than he otherwise would have. This option is much more volatile: he has no idea, going into the game, whether he will win hard or fail hard, but whatever he does, it will be fast-paced and intense.
Traditionally, we associate volatility with risk, so we would say that the first desk is less risky.
And yet, something has clearly gone wrong when you look at a situation and say “You should do the thing that’s guaranteed to fail — it’s less risky.” I mean, we try to avoid risk so as to improve our chances of success. When we box ourselves into a nice, safe, jail, we have to have taken a wrong turning somewhere.
Let’s look at a situation we’re more familiar with: there are 5 seconds left in the game, and your team is down by 1.
If you don’t take the shot, you have a very predictable outcome: you lose. If you DO take the shot, you have a less predictable outcome: you might make it, and win or tie the game. Or you might miss, and lose. Taking the shot is more “risky”, more volatile.
But everyone agrees that you take the shot. It’s your only chance of winning for heaven’s sake!
And that’s the thing. Sometimes volatility is your only chance of winning. And in those cases, although that option is volatile, it’s also less risky.
It all goes back to the fundamental decision-making question: what will help me win?
If reducing volatility will help you win, then it’s a good thing. And that’s very often the case.
But sometimes your only chance of success is to take the outside shot, to try drawing to an inside straight. If you fail, you are in exactly the same situation as if you didn’t try for the outside shot.
So you may as well try it.
Epilogue:
Guillaume Matignon played the more volatile deck. He got lucky draws and won the game, but lost the overall playoff in other games.
.
Resources for Further Reading
Dangerous? Or Gutsy?
Intelligent Risk Taking
I just made the switch from part-time employee/ part-time self-employed to being full-time self-employed. For those of you who’ve never done that, it’s really terrifying. For those of you who’re in the middle of doing that, it’s not just you: it really is terrifying.
The worst part is that – unlike jumping off a high dive — I can’t just take a deep breath and go for it and be done. I have to deal with this fear day after day, face the terror, and continue to be productive.
So whatever the source of fear in your life, here are some techniques that help me fight it off. Use them or adapt them to fit your situation; hopefully they’ll help.
2) Review your goals What are you trying to accomplish here? Remember why you thought it was worth doing in the first place? That’s why it’s still worth doing now.
3) Do a pre-mortem Got this from a book on using games in the workplace. Pretend that whatever project you’re working on has failed miserably and died a horrible death. List all the reasons it died; concoct the most ridiculous, detailed, terrifying compound death you can think of.
Then analyze those reasons. Which ones really are likely? What can you do to prevent them happening or deal with them if they do? Which ones are frankly pretty foolish? For some reason, it helps to write them down where you can see them and laugh at them.
4) Do something small that contributes to your goal When you’re frightened, it’s easy to get paralyzed. Taking even a small step, as long as it’s a step forward, can un-freeze you.
5) Make a very specific plan in Switch, the authors discuss the way that humans tend to run in circles when they’re upset. The solution, in that case, is to give them a very specific set of instructions, so that they don’t have to think about the project and everything they’re afraid of. In this case, you have to give yourself very specific instructions. That makes it less like day after day of fear, and more like making a single decision and a plan, and then just going for it.
6) Perform a risk analysis I wrote a great post on that.
7) Review your previously-created risk analysis If you did step 6 yesterday.
8) Pray Or meditate, or go for a long walk in the woods, or swim, or shower. Whatever helps you calm down.
9) Make your bed Do your dishes. Clean out your inbox. Whatever you can do to help yourself feel less overwhelmed and helpless.
10) Read stories from people with similar problems I get scared. Naomi Dunford gets scared, and feels like a raging failure. We survived it. So can you.
11) Review reasons it’s not so scary There’s an important distinction between dangerous and gutsy, you’re not in middle school anymore, and no one can hit you with a mallet. So really, what are you afraid of?
As BBspot would say, this one goes to 11. Make it longer by adding your own fear-fighting techniques in the comments
