When Do You Call Your Startup A Failure?

I have had this lingering thought “When should I call my startup a failure?”

Now, I did not have this thought in the beginning of building my startup. As time went on, and so many things have happened. I crossed many milestones in this build, that it's like answering someone's question “what do you do?” My answer. Oh nothing, not much. Keeping back the gazillions of ups and downs, the bazillions of craziness, the stress compounded by a trillion pounds of pressure, the countless dollars I pumped into an idea that most likely has no chance at all, oh yeah, that's my normal life. So it's easier to smile and say “Oh nothing, not much.”

When should I call my startup a failure? Let's see.

• When I conceived the idea and spent 3 months thinking about it. If I had had called it a failure then, the words you read right now would not have happened.

• When I walked into that college class and the teacher was obese, she stood there talking about health and fitness, and I could have stayed in the class, and been a cardiac rehab specialist by now, but I looked at her and thought, she needs my product. So I walked out and started building my startup. If I had quit my startup then, that's what I'd be.

• After writing out track after track of the truth of what happens in the mind of a food addict. If I had quit then, the 350 pound man I'm helping now would never know me, and would not be getting my help.

• If I had called it a failure after a man promising me he would build me a website, and taking 3K from me, yet never did a thing. Then I would have never met Jonah Lupton on Twitter, and he would never have led me to Chopdawg Studios. (The best people in the world to build your website)

• If I had called it quits the million times I wanted to, then my startup would have failed.

You see, there is no point of failure unless you give up and walk away. Even though I have not reached the success that I believe is success, if I had walked away at any of the points above, then that's when a startup fails. It only fails when you walk away from it. The startup needs you to build it, and nurture it, and if you walk away when you think it's a failure, well that's when, it is a failure.

What if you never walk away? What if you go though a million stresses, and years of everyone looking at you like, “What the hell are you doing? Get a real job and work like the rest of us.” Oh yeah that pressure is always looming, especially when most of the people in your life only understand, get a skill or profession, and do that, don't follow some wild dream. If I had walked away at any of those times it would be just like what has happened to all the other startups and ideas I have had, they all failed, because I walked away. I quit, I gave up.

This time however, I'm not walking away. I am staying in the thick of world of uncomfortable uncertain feelings. I'm standing in the face of scrutiny that my idea is just a bunch of shit. I'm staying when months and months go on, and I only make a little bit of headway.

The truth is, when I think of when I should call my startup a failure, the answer always is, if you don't give up, it's never.

WhisperApp: Over The Boundary Where Secrets Become Gifts.

When I first checked out WhisperApp, After 5 days I wrote a blog post, explaining what had happened to me in those 5 days. I was so sucked in that I could not get off the app. I felt extremely addicted to it. To me it was the App, and still is the App, with the most amazing look at us human beings.

As all startups go, the idea is set by the founder. This is what I want to develop, and so they set out and built the app, then released it. Then the people, also called users, start using it, and they help shape the founders idea.

Whispers idea is to let anyone tell the secret they have without anyone else knowing it's them. You do not know who the person is who posted the secret. The users do share secrets, but they share way more then that. The users figured out how they want to shape this App, and it's truly amazing to me what they are doing.

They share, not only secrets, but they share their desire for drugs, sex, friendship and many more things that are not necessarily a secret, it's just a desire they have. There is a ton of sex seekers on it. Yet, I have no judgment on them, but many other Whisper users do. So lets talk about Judgment, Reply's, PM's and Hearts.

Judgment: Once you have posted your Secret, people can reply to it. So lets say you post “I wish I could talk to my husband about my boyfriend” Guess what happened when a woman posted that. She got hammered with Reply's that mostly said she was a Whore or a Slut. WOW. I really felt sad for her, and mad because if a man had posted “I wish I could talk to my wife about my girlfriend” I am willing to bet he would not receive the same persecuting judgment she did. This judgment on her was not just men, there were plenty of women that called her those nasty names too. Personally I think the words Whore and Slut should be treated the same way the N word is treated. Don't say it ever, it's evil, cruel, and annihilating to women. I guess that's my judgment on judgment. Well wait, I have more. I think users have decided that, well they are going to give you their opinion on what you post. So that would mean it's a judgment, helping hand, or expression of, either for or against your post. Yet the critical judgment is more widely used. This makes me see into the human beings that we all are. This makes me sad in many ways. WhisperApp's platform is, share your secret if you want too. Nothing more. Though look at us human beings, we decided we should become the judge of the post. But how do we post our opinion without condemning and being judgmental? We could ask ourselves the question: Have I walked in their shoes? How can I know all the things in their life that lead them to write a few sentences, that provoke me to respond with criticism? That lead me to respond with cruel words?

It's not an enemy we face on WhisperApp, it's our own selves. It's humanity, it's people with problems and confusion, loneliness and joy, sexual desires, drug users, laughter seekers, everyday people! It's the person who severs you coffee at Starbucks, the man who hooks up your internet service, the nurse who tends to you at the ER, the kid still in high school, the pizza delivery dude. It's us the human race.

Reply's: A reply is a Whisper post that expresses your feelings and opinion on what the original Whisper person posted. This is also an interesting area, because you can also reply to a reply. I often read the reply’s because I'm interested to learn what people think about what the original Whisper post was. This is where I learn if the majority agrees with the post or disagrees. Here is what I see. It's one of three things. It's either split fairly evenly with critical condemning of the post or graciously kindness to the post. Or it's all totally for the post or totally against the post.

PM's: PM means, private message. It's like a direct message in Twitter, yet not limited to 140 characters. This area is like a messenger or texting service. You can talk to the person who posted the original post, or you may end up talking to people who replied to the original post. Sometimes you'll talk to a ton of people who replied to, your post. Still it's all anonymous unless you choose to share more info about yourself. I like this area a lot, because this is where I jump into souls. Still anonymous you speak freely here, and this is where real magic happens for me. This is where I do my paying it forward work. I've helped suicidal people, depressed people, confused people, lonely people, people with PTSD, people just wanting to talk, and those sex seeking people. I talk to all of them. Each and everyone of them is just like you and I. Humans. Real beautiful people!

Hearts: This is the option that if you liked the post you double click it and a heart blows up and falls away on the post. It's like a like in Facebook. It gets counted. Often times there are way many more hearts then Replys. That means people really like the post, and only so many of them are willing to reply. Kinda like comments and likes on Youtube. I've often seen 80K likes on a Youtube, but only 120 comments. It's just one of those counters that shows how humans beings are. People are more willing to click the heart then make a reply. Nothing wrong with it, just an observation. Yet I always wonder, what all those Heart people were thinking when they hearted a Whisper.

Conclusion: When you stepped over the boundary in WhisperApp, you brought along all your crap. WhisperApp has opened up an amazing world for us to change. It's truly a gift for humanity. We just have to look at it, and be willing to see beyond what our minds have always known. It's all fresh powder. Untouched snow. We are the users, and yes you do have a hand in shaping how us humans can get along, help each other, and explore the worlds of what once was forbidden, because it was a secret.