Why people Fail

Last month something struck me, something I have been seeing folks do for the last 5 years. It resulted in this tweet:

Arrogance or Blindness by Ego

The very first is where entrepreneurs get so blinded by their ideas, that they don't see the lack of traction or the lack of the need in the first place. Google never started with the mission to organize the world's information, InMobi never planned to become the world's largest independent Mobile Ad Network, they happen to see the right signs and kept moving forward. Never fail to see the signs of failure. People get so focused on the prospect of success that they don't see these signs. They start dreaming of glory, the chance to “make a dent in the universe", the chance to make it big in life and keep pushing their peers and company down an abyss of no return.

Ignorance or Blindness by Lack of interest

Then there are those who don't see the growth and opportunity they have and instead err on the side of caution. Many independent App developers fall into this category. They build apps, get hundreds of thousands of downloads, yet consider their effort only a weekend project or a side project. They fail to see the opportunity that lies ahead.

Narrow Vision or Blindness by lack of insights

This one is hard to describe, many folks fail because they are looking at the problem from the wrong perspective, worse still, they don't even understand the problem. This should be visible to anyone who ever has tried to look at any sort of Funnel Metrics. In a Funnel, if a phase is having a problem, it will most probably not be in the hands of the folks who manage that phase. If your sales team is not converting enough clients as before, it may be because they have gotten junk leads from the marketing team. In most cases, one team would be celebrating that they pushed their numbers up, but others will have more work. In most cases, folks will be looking to solve where the problem is noticed rather than looking upstream.

What are some of the cases of lack of learnings from failure you have seen?