Thursday, January 24, 2013

Virgin's Richard Branson: Failing "turned us into an adventurous company"

Entrepreneur.com asked Richard Branson about some of the mistakes he's made in his new ventures, and what he's learned from them:

Entrepreneur: You're very open about having made mistakes -- and, at times, literally making things up as you went along.

Branson: My nickname is Dr. Yes. I can't resist a challenge. And I've certainly said yes to too many things in my life. Therefore, not everything has worked out. Fortunately, most of the things I've said yes to were small ideas, just starting from scratch. So if they didn't work out, it wouldn't damage us too much financially or rummage the brand too much.

Entrepreneur: How did those early stumbles shape Virgin as a company?

Branson: In Britain, people who try things and then fail are actually well-respected. People like the underdog. If you go back to my adventure times, generally speaking, we failed on most of my adventures the first time. In attempting to bring back the Blue Riband [an award given to a ship for crossing the Atlantic Ocean in record time] for Great Britain, we created the boat the Atlantic Challenger in 1985. All was going very well until we sank 300 miles from the U.K., and were rescued by a banana boat. And the next year, we picked ourselves up and tried again and succeeded. Interestingly, if we had succeeded the first time, I think it would've been a big story, but not the massive story it turned into. At the time, we had just launched Virgin Atlantic, we were trying to put it on the map, and we jokingly took a full-page advert with a picture of the hull sticking out of the water saying, "Next time, Richard, take the plane." But it was things like that, where we tried and failed, that put Virgin on the map, gave it a sexier image than our bigger rivals, and turned us into an adventurous company and brand.

Entrepreneur: You say Virgin Cola was one of your more notable stumbles in business. In hindsight, what would you have done differently?

Branson: With Virgin Cola, we would not have assumed big means sleepy -- we would have prepared for the largest global soft drink company to fight back. The experience certainly hasn't stopped us from taking on other Goliaths. At Virgin, we don't spend much time regretting the past, and we don't let mistakes or failures get to us, and we certainly don't fear failure. We picked ourselves up and tried again and searched for opportunities in other gaps in the market.

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