A lesson on the importance of failure from a defeated NBA champion

I was watching a press conference with NBA basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo when he gave an unexpected lesson that every startup founder should remember: you don’t have to win all the time.

A reporter asked Giannis whether he considered the season to be a failure for his team, the Milwaukee Bucks, after they failed to live up to high expectations and flamed out in the first round of the NBA playoffs. What came next was a very raw and impassioned response; “Every year you work towards a goal. It’s not a failure, it’s [sic] steps towards success.”

Those words stuck with me long after I stopped watching the press conference and it’s something every entrepreneur should heed no matter what stage in their career they are at. Not every day is going to be a win. In fact, if you don’t try new ideas and fail, you don’t move forward.

My co-founder, Mo Moubayed, and I know this too well. Before Veridooh, we planned to launch a different business — a digital out-of-home (DOOH) network that sold advertising space on top of vehicles. It was when we were pitching this business idea that we discovered the very strong but unmet demand for independent verification in OOH advertising.

When we first realised we needed independent verification it felt like a huge setback. However, we went back to the drawing board and ended up building a solution for the industry. All of a sudden, we could provide a new service and add value to the sector in ways we hadn’t even thought of before. So, we took this product and launched Veridooh, giving the entire OOH industry access to our independent verification tool.

Jeremy Yang of Veridooh. Source: Supplied

But of course, this meant putting aside our plans to launch the DOOH network and letting go of months of hard work. There were so many setbacks and mixed emotions during this period but we never considered it a failure. We knew that those months we spent working on our DOOH network which ultimately never launched led to building and launching Veridooh. They were the “steps to our success”.

Giannis’ words perfectly summed up our experience of learning the value of failures. It’s a particularly timely reminder for our Australian startup community that is going through a difficult period. It feels like every week we read news articles about local businesses facing layoffs or shutting shop.

It’s hard to see so many facing these challenges, particularly when you think about the people directly impacted. But, hopefully founders remember that not every setback is a failure and take the opportunity to learn from them and come back with bigger and better ideas.

In the words of Giannis; “You don’t always win … [sic] we’ll come back next year, try to be better and build new habits.”

Jeremy Yang is the co-founder of Veridooh.