Success leaves clues. But honestly, MISTAKES leave bigger ones.
Today, I want to help you avoid one of the biggest – and more costly – mistakes I’ve made in my career. Hopefully, by making this mistake myself, I can help you avoid doing the same thing!
There’s something about entrepreneurs that nobody talks about enough. We’re wired differently.
We’re always rushing to the next big thing, always pushing for faster results, always wanting things done yesterday.
Sometimes, that’s exactly what gets us into trouble.
Trust me, I’ve learned this lesson the hard way.
Multiple times, actually.
- Like when I lost $21,000 in crypto because I couldn’t wait to "test the waters" properly.
- Or when I lost $150,000 on a property investment because I was too eager to expand my portfolio.
- Or that time I partnered with someone who turned out to be a literal felon (yes, really) because I was too rushed to do proper due diligence.
But none of these compare to the biggest lesson I learned about speed.
The one that came from trying to build a global franchise too fast.
My Biggest Failure - When Speed Kills
A few years ago, we decided to roll out a franchise across multiple countries simultaneously. We were going BIG. We launched in…
- the UK,
- USA,
- Canada,
- Australia,
- and New Zealand.
It was ambitious. It was exciting. And on paper, it looked absolutely perfect.
The franchisees were happy. The business model was working. Everything seemed to be going according to plan.
Until it wasn’t.
We got caught up in a nightmare of regulatory red tape, particularly around franchise law. While we did right by all our franchisees (they were all taken care of and didn’t have any issues), we found ourselves getting slapped with fines for not having all the proper paperwork in place.
Why did this happen?
Because I fell victim to what I now call "the entrepreneur’s curse." It’s burning desire to make everything happen at light speed. That voice in your head that says, "We need this done yesterday!"
The irony?
All that speed ended up slowing us down. Way down.
The regulatory issues became a massive distraction, costing us both time and money – resources we could have saved if we’d just taken the time to do things properly from the start.
When I look back on it now, there were three critical lessons we learned.
Lesson #1: Speed vs. Success - Finding the Sweet Spot
There’s an old saying that "money likes speed," and to some extent, that’s true.
But there’s a massive difference between moving quickly and moving recklessly.
The key is finding that sweet spot where you’re maintaining momentum without sacrificing due diligence. For every major business decision, I now have a simple rule: Take whatever time you think you need, then add 20% for research and planning.
This doesn’t mean becoming slow or overcautious. It means being strategic about your speed.
Move fast on the things that can be fixed easily if they go wrong, but slow down for the big, irreversible decisions.
Lesson #2: The Power of Other People's Mistakes
Trial and error is a terrible way to learn.
- It’s expensive…
- It’s time-consuming…
- And it’s usually painful…
That’s why I’m sharing these stories with you. Because learning from other people’s mistakes is infinitely better than making them yourself.
I now spend time every week reading biographies and memoirs of successful entrepreneurs.
Not just for their success stories, but specifically looking for their failures and what they learned from them. It’s like getting decades of business experience without having to live through all the painful parts.
Lesson #3: The Art of Risk Management
One of the biggest lessons from all these experiences is the importance of proper risk management.
This isn’t just about avoiding risks – it’s about taking the right risks in the right way.
When I lost money on that property in Auckland, it hurt – but it didn’t sink me because I had diversified my portfolio. When the crypto investment went south, it was painful, but I had only invested what I could afford to lose.
The franchise situation taught me to create better safety nets in my business.
Now, before any major expansion or new venture, we have a detailed risk assessment process that looks at everything that could go wrong – and plans for how to handle it if it does.
Here’s the thing about making mistakes – they’re only truly failures if you don’t learn from them.
That franchise experience? It completely changed how I approach business growth.
Yes, it was expensive. Yes, it was painful. But the lessons learned have probably saved me from making even bigger mistakes down the road.
So if you’re an entrepreneur reading this, take a moment today to look at your current projects.
- Are you moving too fast?
- Are you skipping steps in the name of speed?
- Are you doing proper due diligence, or are you letting the entrepreneur’s curse push you forward too quickly?
Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your business is to slow down just enough to make sure you’re moving in the right direction.
After all, it’s better to go slow in the right direction than to race full speed ahead in the wrong one.
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