I've said for a while that people learn so much more from failure than they do from success. This post from Keith Nowak is definitely worth a read.
"I once read a characterization of startups by Dick Costolo, co-founder of FeedBurner, as going down many dark alleys only to find they are dead ends. In my opinion, dark alleys need to be navigated anywhere there are unknowns and a large possibility of making mistakes. This can include the overall business strategy, the product roadmap, coding decisions, and the marketing plan. The key is to realize which ones are dead ends quickly so you can try something else. Exploring each dark alley takes time and money so the number of mistakes that can be made is more or less fixed. There comes a point when you have run out of the time and money for more attempts. Getting through the dark alleys before it is too late requires concerted dedication to going through the process of attempting, learning, and correcting as quickly as possible. This may seem rather obvious but in the middle of running the company it always felt like we were moving a million miles per hour. There was always a feeling of energy and urgency. The last thing we needed to worry about was moving quickly. However, looking back we moved too slowly when it came to a few very important things.
For one, we stuck with the wrong strategy for too long. I think this was partly because it was hard to admit the idea wasn’t as good as I originally thought or that we couldn’t make it work. If we had been honest with ourselves earlier on we may have been able to pivot sooner and have enough capital left to properly execute the new strategy. I believe the biggest mistake I made as CEO of imercive was failing to pivot sooner. "