Failure Decoded

Ashley Menzies Babatunde is an attorney,  graduate of  Stanford and Harvard Law School, activist, disruptive thinker, a natural storyteller and podcaster.

Failure, setbacks or success do not define her. She is proud of her success because she has worked extremely hard to beat failure.

Her podcast, No Straight Path, is all about highlighting stories, emphasizing communities and learning from people's experiences and also helping others get access to these stories.

Ashley shares her friend’s perspective about failure which helped her embrace failure as a normal part of everyone’s success story. 

Ashley makes compelling points about why it's important to talk about failure and how it could help people be less judgmental and approach others’ experiences with more curiosity, empathy and compassion.

Show Notes:

7:31 - Failing was devastating

8:03 - Failure does not define Ashley, grit and resilience do

8:30 - Normalizing failure

10:25 - Deep dive into failing the Bar exam

13:09 - Dispel shame and stigma attached to failure

19:00 - Fighting perfectionism

20:54 - Striving for excellence

23:07 - Supportive parents make a huge difference

24:00 - Humanizing stories as there are not  enough stories to learn from

26:00 - How to connect with people and not be awkward about it in an effort to 
emphasis communities, highlight their stories

28:16 - Ashley's podcast 'No Straight Path', story behind connecting organically,  showcasing various stories through this medium.

32:30 - Mindset shift about failure because of her friend’s story

33:45 - Failure happens only if you're doing something. Failure is an event that happens when people are setting themselves up to succeed. All emotions need to be felt.

35:05 - Honor the pain and then formulate an action plan to bounce back.

36:05 - Why talking about failure or setbacks and sharing it is important.

37:00 - Share more and humanize experiences so it is easy for others.

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Links:

Follow Ashley Menzies Babatunde on Linkedin & Instagram
Read her stories on her Blog

No Straight Path Podcast & Instagram

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

Landon Sanford is a serial entrepreneur, an ex-YCombinator/Sequoia backed founder & ex-Googler who joins us to talk about his love of building things, launching ventures, his experience with raising funds and failure.

Show Notes:

0:35 - Landon’s viral LinkedIn post about launching 8 startups in 6 years

1:52 - Landon talks about some of the industries he’s worked in

3:00 - Shamsiya introduces Landon

5:26 - Landon’s advice for raising funds

7:45 - Raising money vs bootstrapping

8:55 - Being a non-technical founder

10:15 - Classic entrepreneurial mistakes and finding product market fit

12:55 - Landon’s experience being the first hire at Maven

15:28 - Validating startup ideas

16:30 - Experience with failure and mindset

20:20 - Skill set for overcoming failure

24:18 - Landon talks about his podcast and interviews with senior citizens and terminally ill patients

28:00 - Landon’s experience at YCombinator

29:23 - Founder houses

32:51 - Personal branding and building credibility in the startup community

35:52 - What mistakes Landon is seeing among new entrepreneurs

39:00 - Pitching to investors and differentiating yourself

41:14 - What Landon is working on currently

43:19 - Where you can find Landon on social media 



Links:

Follow Landon Sanford on Linkedin & Twitter
Current venture: Arwen
Personal portfolio


Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

Erik Engheim, a software developer, educator and author, draws interesting parallels between historical events and new age innovation strategies.

He also deep dives into the hands on approach with which Elon Musk is paving the way for futuristic innovations.

In one of his many articles, Erik reiterates how people do not have to like Elon Musk to laud his accomplishments.  Musk's approach to innovation largely involves iteration and prototyping. This strategy is perhaps why he can embrace failure with confidence, even when the odds are against him.


Show Notes:

6:08 - Colonizing Mars in 1980s was just talked of but governments with huge resources couldn't accomplish it. Elon Musk started these big changes.

7:35 - Iterative development and prototyping

8:30 - Differences between Elon Musk and the Soviet Union’s approach

9:26 - How Elon Musk built Space X

9:41 - Hardware rich approach: blow up a bunch of rockets

10:44 - Hands on approach versus theoretical approach to rocket building, which set Elon Musk apart

12:19 - Companies must embrace failure but need to have strategies to minimize it

18:53 - Thinking Fast Thinking Slow

19:14 - Feedback from your average customer is everything

22:05 - Sunk cost fallacy

23:00 - Elon Musk's mental stamina 

26:26 - Musk doesn't accept failure, most of us are not built that way.

26:57 - Erik reflects on how he would not be able to handle failure the same way.

28:38 - Advice from Erik for software development to minimize cost, confusion and failure.

31:37 - Find effective ways to generate results in short time: Use innovative strategies, tactics.

32:39 - Finding optimal solutions: Germans’ approach

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Links:

Follow Erik Engheim on Substack and Linkedin

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

Rachel shares her experience buying a rental property for Airbnb. She talks about all the things that went wrong and the mindset needed to keep a level head when things aren't going your way.

Show Notes:

0:35 - Rachel talks about buying an investment property for Airbnb with her husband

1:35 - How and why they picked the Hilton Head market

3:20 - First hiccup - they fly to Hilton Head to tour properties but their original realtor ghosted them

5:42 - Second hiccup - making their first offer and finding out the property had structural issues

7:28 - The importance of being budget conscious and financial modelling to be cash flow positive

8:38 - Third hiccup - financing fell through 2 days before closing!
 
11:42 - Third times a charm - they find a new lender and finally get a place

13:15 - They start renovating the unit and only have 6 days to complete it

17:00 - Managing your emotions, find out what's trigging you and walk away when necessary

17:55 - The stressful sprint to finish everything before needing to leave for the airport

19:00 - Having a debrief with your partner - discuss what could be done better for next time

20:55 - Planning for unforeseen problems - buffer time and budget for that (broken light, bathroom leak)

22:03 - They run out of time and almost miss their flight

23:30 - Accepting the situation and moving forward by problem solving

24:34 - If you're buying real estate in a new place check out the area and get a sense of it

27:46 - You can only pre-plan for so much, things will go wrong so you need to learn to problem solve and pivot in the moment

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Links:

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram
Rachel's AirBnb

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

Rachel and Shamsiya talk about how to start a podcast, what tools they use and how they came up with the concept for Failure Decoded. They also talk about the first failure they experienced as podcast hosts.

Show Notes:

0:30 - Failure Decoded's first failure

3:45 - How we handle rejection and failure

8:45 - Step 1 for starting a podcast - finding a niche

11:45 - Step 2 - Finding the format, frequency and name

13:55 - Step 3 - Tips for creating a logo that pops

16:58 - Step 4 - Choosing our recording tools (we use Riverside and the Yeti microphone)

19:13 - Step 5 - Finding a podcast hosting platform (we use Buzzsprout)

21:22 - Step 6 - Editing software (we use GarageBand)

25:23 - Summing up the podcast process

28:48 - We talk about TikTok and the social platforms we like to use

33:00 - Going viral on TikTok

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Links:

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

Being good at cold outreach is an extremely important skill as an entrepreneur. You can create a lot of opportunities for yourself if you master this skill and develop the confidence to face rejection.

Rachel talks about her experience with door-to-door sales, selling credit cards at a gas station and starting a Holiday gift box business two months before Christmas using cold outreach techniques.

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Show Notes:

1:00 - Rachel talks about her door-to-door sales jobs in University and learning to face rejection

5:50 - Rachel breaks down the cold outreach techniques she used to start a business with no experience or industry contacts

15:45 - Rachel talks about a free tool to help you find people's email addresses

17:08 - Create an outreach process to make your life easier

20:00 - How Rachel got her favourite band to record a personalized birthday shoutout video for her husband using cold outreach

25:55 - How to get leverage

27:35 - Sam Parr's cold outreach techniques 

29:24 - Quick recap of all the cold outreach techniques

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Links:

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

In this episode we give you a glimpse of how two nerdy entrepreneurs have coffee table conversations about Elon Musk. 

We talk about why he is so polarizing, his power to get away with trolling, his vision, mental stamina and his eccentric work-life situation.

We explore how Elon Musk is that one entrepreneur who is not afraid to fail. He has built his entire prototyping, iteration and testing strategy to minimize the cost of failure.

Show Notes:

3:10- What is the effect of his trolling tweet about The Rings of Power

4:54- He doesn't worry about failing, his innate nature 

5:57- Elon Musk’s power to get away with anything 

7:12- He stays relevant in the public eye 

9:12- He kept blowing up rockets but wouldn't succumb to failure

10:00- Elon's mental stamina 

13:29- He's hands on, proactive, and has a greater vision for humankind 

15:00- Thoughts on his high stress lifestyle and why it's not manageable for most people 

16:22- Elon is obsessed with finding disruptive solutions to the world's problems 

18:47- People love him, hate him or just don't care

References:

Elon's Tweet about The Rings of Power
Fortune Article
Market Watch Article

Links:

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

Masooma, the founder of Kids Bolo, talks about prototyping, finding mentors, networking tips, enduring sleepless nights and what it’s like to work with her husband.

She walks us through the initial steps she took to start Kids Bolo, the process of setting up a launch campaign and some of the businesses she tried to start that failed. 

Show Notes: 

1:30 - Masooma tells us how she started Kids Bolo 

3:20 - She talks about the tech side of Kids Bolo and the sleepless nights it took to get it launched 

6:15 - Prototyping process, market research and talking to competitors 

9:00 - 3 initial steps to launch Kids Bolo 

10:45 - How did you find your mentors? 

12:50 - Masooma talks about businesses she tried to start that didn’t work before Kids Bolo

18:28 - Networking tips

20:25 - Masooma talks about executing on their launch campaign event 

25:36 - Hiring key people 

30:15 - The importance of meeting deadlines 

33:40 - What’s it like working with your husband?

34:52 - Is it hard to disconnect and ‘leave work at work’?     

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Links:

Kids Bolo
Kids Bolo Instagram

Failure Decoded
Failure Decoded Instagram

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram
LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

We all have 24 hours in a day but no one has time. This leaves us feeling stressed, burnt out and like failures. In this episode we talk about looking inward to figure out what time management system works best for you. There's no one size fits all! We also talk about what self-care really means.

Mastering time management and a self-care practice are essential to leading a successful and balanced life that makes you happy, healthy and fulfilled.

Show Notes:

1:09 - Shamsiya explains why you need to start by looking inward before you can determine the best time management strategy that works for you

8:39 - How do you document all the aspects needed to determine the best time management strategy?

11:39 - Differing opinions on sleep

16:33 - What is self-care? It's not one thing. It's the process of taking care of your being in a way that brings you peace and happiness

21:45 - Time eaters - these are the activities that you should remove from your life

28:55 - Remove drama, negativity and the things that don't serve you

30:05 - Consistency can be hard but it's one of the main ways to avoid failure and get results

33:00 - How to add more time to your life

35:53 - The time management systems that Shamsiya and Rachel use

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Links:

Failure Decoded Instagram

failuredecoded.com

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram

LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn

Twitter

Instagram

Nora Ben talks about starting (and stoping) her first business venture then returning to a 9-5 job before taking the plunge into entrepreneurship again and launching her current business, a global interior design agency called LivHoli.

Nora shares the benefits of hiring a coach and the importance of hearing constructive criticism in order to grow. She believes in the mindset of viewing your work as an act of service to others. This mindset as enabled her to get most of her clients through referrals and helped her expand into many countries.

She also shares some tips for relationship building as an introvert.

Show Notes

2:15 - Nora explains how she tried to start her first business but decided to go back to a 9-5 job when it didn’t work out the first time

4:43 - Nora talks about giving herself one year to learn everything she felt she was missing in order to start her own business again

10:48 - Nora talks about getting mentors and hiring a coach

13:14 - Nora explains the benefits of hiring a coach (one of the biggest benefits being criticism)

18:50 - Her company’s Instagram was hacked and disabled so she lost all her followers and the resources spent growing the account!

19:50 - Nora talks about how she gets referrals from clients and vendors

23:07 - Nora talks about how she grew her business globally

23:50 - Relationship building strategies for introverts

28:44 - What upfront capital is needed to start a design agency?

32:41 - Where you can find more about LivHoli?

Links:

LivHoli Website

LinkedIn

Failure Decoded Instagram

failuredecoded.com

Your Hosts:

Shamsiya

Instagram

LinkedIn

Rachel

LinkedIn

Twitter

Instagram