Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm

Written on May 22, 2008 – 11:49 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Ok, it might be a little cliché to quote Winston Churchill in a headline, yet it was the first thing that came to my mind when I was reading a post by U.C. Berkeley student Henry Liu. Together with two fellow students he has founded Polarate. A service that offers its users an opportunity to discuss and talk about even the biggest controversies. When they launched the site on March 31st - after only three months of developing - they were expecting thousands of visitors. Turned out this was a little too optimistic. Now, almost two months later, Henry shares what he has learned from this deception and how he and his partners saved the company.

The post contains ten lessons that can help or inspire every entrepreneur who just got started. I’d like to add one too. When you’re working on your PR and blog, make sure you share your knowledge, doubts and joy in an equally honest and open way as Henry did.

I hope you like that post!

The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our 'About' page and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!

entrepreneurs, lessons, polarate, Start-ups

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

My co-editor Boris is not just a blogger, but a serial Internet entrepreneur. Starting a bunch of companies comes with success - like his first one, V3, and more recently, Twittercounter -, and failure. Today,...

Entrecard.com, to sell or not to sell

Written by Mircea Goia It seems it’s the end of the road for Entrecard…or maybe not. It depends on who is buying it and what it does after that, since the site is listed on sale...

FONtrepreneur: Program Failure

In september Fon, the free Wi-Fi initiative backed by Google, Sequoia Capital, and Index Ventures, launched a B2B program in an effort to get more coverage in densely populated areas. It promised 50% of all...

2 comments/trackbacks to “Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”

May 22, 2008: 10 lecciones aprendidas de una startup casi fallida » eConectados
[...] estado leyendo a través de The Next Web, una serie de consejos Henry Liu, jefe de Polarate. Primero decir, que en este servicio te [...]

By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on May 22, 2008

Ah yes, that is one of my favorite quotes. Blogged about it here once: http://bomega.com/2007/11/27/what-am-i/

[Reply]

The Next Web