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Anonymous
Hey I am on Medial • 3d
Imagine this. Two founders. Same starting line. Both launched their first startup: a social media app for pet owners. Both worked hard. Both ran out of money after a year. Both shut down. At this point, they looked identical. But what they did next made all the difference. Founder B — The Stagnation Arc After failing, B blames the idea. They pivot to a coffee subscription business. All prior lessons feel irrelevant. They’re back to zero. The venture fails. Years are gone. Frustrated, B switches again, this time to B2B software. Once again, new industry, new learning curve, back to zero. Three disconnected attempts. No compounding. No pattern of improvement. Burnt out, B quits startups altogether. Founder A — The Progression Arc A also fails. But instead of discarding everything, they run a post-mortem. They realize: retention (X) was weak, but acquisition (Y) was brilliant. In their next venture, a hiking community app—they reuse acquisition (Y) and redo retention (X). Faster launch. Higher quality failure. They raise a seed round. Third venture: they stack lessons from #1 and #2. Acquisition + retention + new business model. This time, it clicks. The startup grows fast and eventually gets acquired. The Lesson? Failure itself doesn’t decide your future. How you recycle lessons does. Founder B reset after every failure. Founder A stacked after every failure. Momentum compounds faster than talent, luck, or even a great idea. Next time something fails, don’t ask “What should I do next?” Ask “What should I reuse? What should I redo?”
Replies (2)
Hari kiran
Insight guru • 2d
There's a book called QUIT by Annie Duke dealing about this exact concept. Whether to quit or double down on ideas or actions .. Surprisingly there are multiple real time stories , both successful & failure in both aspects. What I mean to say is , there's no one formula that fits everyone. So many things impact the outcome like personal attributes, circumstances , market vibes, luck and many more. If you want to have a look at my review on the book, can visit my blog ( https://paradoxphilos.wordpress.com/2025/07/12/quit-the-power-of-knowing-when-to-walk-away-by-annie-duke-book-review-and-recommendation/ ). It's a great book for a read .
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