Failed business ventures of famous businesspersons and iconic brands
There was a time when there were very few companies in the world – very few opportunistic and daring businessmen dared to put in their monies into risky business ventures. Today, 10 new startups are launched every day just in India itself! The problem is, many business ventures are failing at a rapid rate too either due to lack of innovation or a less-popular business idea.
If you are an entrepreneur, this article will teach you not to get disheartened if your business venture is struggling to make its mark, many of the biggies failed too! This article will enlist some glaring failures of some very famous businesspersons and iconic brands below:
- Bill Gates
Though he is the second-richest person at the moment thanks to his Microsoft Inc. stealing the operating system show across the world, there was a time when Bill failed too!
Bill had launched a traffic statistic measurement tool in the 70s called Traf-o-Data that failed to garner many audiences at the time of its launch and didn’t take off the way it was supposed to.
- Evan Williams
The founder of the social media giant called Twitter had once launched a podcast sharing tool called Odeo. Due to improper planning, the product launch woefully coincided with the launch of Apple’s very own podcast sharing tool called iTunes and Odeo simply bombed before it even launched
- Jeff Bezos
Before launching the mega-billion-dollar empire called Amazon, Bezos had launched zShops (an early prototype of Amazon). Though zShops never even registered in the minds of shoppers, its principles were incorporated into Amazon and see where it is now!
- Steve Jobs
Before Apple became a profitable company, the Apple I and Apple Lisa were the biggest loss-making products launched by Apple in its history! However, the founders of Apple persevered and launched the Apple iMac which spun things into their favor.
Can you believe Steve was once fired from his own company before being re-hired to lead the company to where it is now!
The internet search giant which everyone uses has made a slew of failed products like Google Wave, Google Video Player, Google Notebook, Google Buzz, Google Nexus Smartphone, Project ARA, Chromecast Audio, iGoogle, QuickOffice, Bump!, Google Desktop, Google Labs, Google Now, Google+, etc. The list is simply endless!
However, Google keeps innovating – after all the Android Operating system and Google Search have taken the world by storm, haven’t they?
- Yahoo!
There was a time when Google was nothing and Yahoo! ruled the internet, but things didn’t ever go Yahoo’s way ever. Yahoo never stressed on innovation especially in the online advertising market (see where Google AdWords is now!) and also failed to realize its potential.
There was a time when Yahoo wanted to buy Google in 2002, but the CEO of Yahoo vetoed the offer. Again in 2006, they could have bought Facebook at a really low valuation, but when Yahoo devalued the offer further, Mark Zuckerberg simply backed out. Imagine where Yahoo! could have been if they had bought these two giant brands!
- IBM
IBM may power supercomputers, but they never really tapped into the smartphone or personal computer arenas despite several attempts like the IBM Simon (world’s first smartphone) and IBM PC. The IBM Thinkpad has very fewer buyers in the world as IBM would have hoped to have…
This is why people always associate IBM with only data processing.
- Ford Motor Company
In 1957, Ford invested over $400 million into the development of a car (the Edsel model) with a market hype that it was going to be a ‘vehicle of the future’. When it finally launched in 1958, it was dubbed as one the worst marketing failures of that decade because the car was nothing special and Americans weren't buying it.
It was withdrawn from the market in 1960, just two years after launch, the biggest loss for Ford ever!
Long story short, big companies fail and small companies fail too! There is no secret to everlasting success, but constant innovation and customer satisfaction. Phil McKinney, CEO of CableLabs famously said that without a robust and resilient innovation strategy, no company can survive. So, don’t get disheartened if your venture is struggling, keep innovating and never lose hope!
