Entrepreneurship. Lessons from failed projects.

1. Persica. 1998 after finishing my studies in UK, I went back to Iran and I dabbled in a number of projects and jobs. One of them that went nowhere and resulted in a total loss was Persica. The idea was to create something like "Body Shop" style products of Iran to export to Europe. I created some sample wooden boxes, with various products inside. I distributed these amongst my contacts in Europe, hoping someone might find them interesting. In total, I spent around 1000 euros in creating wooden boxes, and the items I bought to fill them up with.

Dissecting the failure reasons:

• I had little experience in export.
• I did not put in the required effort to find a distribution channel, prior or posterior to the product development.
• I let go of the idea after a few NOs.

2. PersianEbooks In 1999 I got some funding from two publishers in Iran. I convinced them that the future is ebooks and online bookstores. Both directors of the publishing companies were IT enthusiasts and they believed in the future potential. With their help and some sub-contractors, we managed to convert and create almost 100 ebooks from their published books. Unfortunately, we sold none.

Dissecting the failure reasons:

• We did everything, except marketing
• We spent all our money on product development
• I must also admit, I should have read some of the contracts I signed for and on behalf of one of my supporting publishers who paid for the online store software. Not taking the time to fully read the contract meant that we ended up paying for software that had no payment gateway. :-( Without the payment gateway, we could not sell, automatically and easily.
• Lack of demand. Finally, we were just too early for the market. It was early 2000, Amazon was still a loss-making machine. The Iranian book market is a niche market and there was simply not enough volume at that time.

3. Rent a PC. The idea was appealing to me and the numbers worked well. It was simple, a PC in those could cost people/businesses anything between €1000 to 2000. I rented for €150/month, included support, and changed the PC every 30 months. So they got a new PC before it got the chance to become obsolete or slow. The PC would still have re-selling value and the profit would be approximately 60 to 70% within 30 months.

Dissecting the failure reasons:

• I needed rather a large initial capital to make it work or else growth would have been really slow.
• Biggest threat to the company, was if people didn't pay or disappeared. This issue was exasperated by the location of my business, which was high in transient foreigners who could just leave back to their country with little or no trace.
• I let go as I knew nothing about fundraising or making long-term business plans.

4. Bye Bye Commissions. In the early part of 2000 the property sector was booming in Southern Spain. Estate Agents were popping up like mushrooms, charging 5 to 7% commissions for each property sale and prices were constantly going up. At the same time, ADSL was being rolled out in Spain and more and more people were asking for an internet connection. Bye Bye Commission, allowed you to upload your property to a database and advertise it on our website for a one-off fee of 199€ until it was sold.

Dissecting the failure reasons:

• I distributed many fliers around the area but not enough people were online or familiar with the internet to signup online. My target audience was owners who were 60 years or above, selling their holiday homes, and not very IT literate.
• Lack of marketing: I failed to do enough online marketing for those who were online.
• I was a little too early and only kept the website running for two years until I was dissuaded by some savvy businessman that this might cause me problems and that "some people might even knock on my door after midnight!". I gave into the baseless fear he instilled in me.
• Lack of vision and passion.

5. Urbanization Wifi. By 2005, most people in Southern Spain (Costa del Sol) wanted internet access at whatever cost. Not all private urbanizations in Spain had decent telephone connections and many were too far away from the telephone exchange, so the only options available were Wifi and Radio connections. Reading on devices I created a mesh of access points that connected to a central point with internet access.

Dissecting the failure reasons:

• Lack of Knowledge. Unfortunately, my knowledge was limited in this sector. I did not put in enough time to investigate the available products. The choice of my products eventually led to far too many service interruptions and as such, it was not something we could support on a large scale.
• Lack of Focus. My competitors were working on this service with focus as the sole service and this was a sideline project that I was building.