When people see that Fridai is my seventh business, the first reaction is usually surprise.
But what I’ve come to realise is that most of what I’ve learned about business has come from the ventures that didn’t work.
My first failure was a vintage clothing business I started in my early 20s.
Looking back, I wanted the outcome without putting in the work. The idea wasn’t the problem. I was. I thought things would happen quicker than they did and I didn’t have the work ethic I’ve got now. It taught me that if you want something to succeed, you’ve got to put the hours in.
The second was an eco-decking business. There were four of us involved, but I was the one doing most of the selling.
We never properly agreed who was responsible for what and that became a problem. It taught me that shareholders and employees are two different things. Someone can be both, but the roles need defining. If they aren’t, resentment builds fast.
The third was a joint venture that never really got off the ground. At the time, Hybrid still relied too heavily on me day-to-day. We were looking at new opportunities before we’d got the right people and processes in place. It taught me that you can’t scale from instability.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that knowing when to stop is a strength, not a weakness.
If you can’t be relentless about an idea, it’s probably not the right one. The businesses that survive are the ones still worth fighting for on the worst days.
Failure never feels good in the moment. But you don’t start again from zero. You start again with better judgement, better instincts and a clearer understanding of what makes a business work.
A lot of those lessons fed into why we built Fridai. Running a business is hard. Scaling one is harder. People are the best part of growth, but they’re often the most difficult part too.
As businesses grow, information ends up scattered across spreadsheets, systems and inboxes, and leaders spend more and more time chasing answers instead of making decisions.
That’s a pain we’ve lived ourselves. Fridai gives businesses live visibility of what’s happening across the operation. Put simply, you can’t scale chaos. You need good people, clear information and systems that support growth rather than create more work.
These days, before I start anything new, I ask myself one question: will taking my focus off the current business damage it more than the new opportunity is worth? If the answer is yes, it’s an easy no.
- Hybrid Solutions Group was founded in 2013 in Manchester and is a diversified engineering, infrastructure and technology organisation operating across the UK’s most demanding environments.