Startup Tip: Not Every Failure Is A Learning Experience (opens in new tab)

Sometimes I wish people still wrote down their thoughts, instead of telling a camera about them and uploading it to Vimeo.

My understanding of "fail fast" is not that you should pack up and go home if your idea doesn't work, but rather that you should change course toward an idea that works better as soon as you realize you're heading in the wrong direction - rather than chasing your losses by clinging stubbornly to a doomed trajectory.

"Fail fast" doesn't mean you should seek failure eagerly. It means you should find promising ideas that need market testing, and market test them as quickly as possible, and then evolving them as warranted based on feedback.