You don’t scale a business without a few wrong turns.
But some mistakes are worth making.
Everyone loves to talk about their wins.
But if you want to learn something useful, listen to someone who’s failed.
Because in my experience, the best decisions often come after the worst ones.
It’s not the polished, PR-safe stories that move you forward.
It’s the missteps, the ones that keep you up at night, that quietly turn you into a better person overall.
This newsletter isn’t about failure for failure’s sake.
It’s about leverage and the hidden upside of getting it wrong first.
Let’s be honest.
My career didn’t start with eight-figure exits and awards. It started with a failed modelling agency in 2004 and no, not the kind of failure you package neatly into a “what I learnt” LinkedIn post.
But here’s what no one tells you at the start:
Mistakes are the best form of training.
Every bad decision was a lesson I didn’t want but probably needed.
And without them, I wouldn’t have built or exited what I did, across multiple industries, teams in 8 countries, and a multi-award-winning agency that sold in a strategic multimillion-pound deal.
What changed? I started learning faster.
Got brutally honest about what was working and what wasn’t.
Stopped pretending things would fix themselves.
And built frameworks based on scars, not just strategies.
So no, I’m not interested in the polished path to success.
I’m interested in the version that nearly broke you because that’s where the real shift happens.
That’s where founders either fold… or build something worth selling.
We scaled too fast.
One founder hit £200k months in under a year. No systems. No real leadership. Six months later? Burnout, churn, legal issues. Now they scale slower and profit more.
Trying to be the 'affordable option'.
“I underpriced us for years.” Trying to be the ‘affordable option’ nearly killed them. Margins were tight, the team was exhausted, and clients were still demanding more. Doubling prices didn’t halve the pipeline, it doubled the quality.
Hired someone I liked instead of someone I needed.
The team got along. Nothing got done. Changed their hiring strategy and now they lead with role purpose, not coffee banter.
Built the wrong offer.
The site looked slick. The copy slapped. But no one wanted it.Turns out, market research matters more than moodboards.
Letting culture rot while chasing revenue.
Toxic top performers. Gossip behind closed doors. From the outside, things looked great. Inside? Chaos. They rebuilt slower and kept the rot out this time.
Ignored my gut and paid for it.
Something felt off in the pitch. But they signed anyway. Six months of late payments, gaslighting, and grief followed. Now? If the vibe’s off, they walk, no matter the cheque size.
I’ve built, scaled, and exited businesses.
But none of the flashy stuff matters as much as the lessons I got wrong first.
Here’s a short list of things I’ve personally botched:
Each one cost me, time, money, and sleep.
But each one also sharpened me.
That’s why I now ask every founder I work with the same thing:
What mistake are you grateful for?
Because if you’re not learning from it, you’re probably repeating it.
Mistakes are only useless if you protect your ego instead of your momentum.
Most founders try to skip failure.
The smart ones?
They get in, get hit, and get out stronger.
You can’t grow if you’re scared to get it wrong.
But if you’re willing to learn from it, there’s no such thing as a wasted mistake.
Writer, The Success Method
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