TITLE: Making Your Own Mistakes
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 10, 2011  2:56 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Earlier today,
<A HREF="https://twitter.com/#!/missrogue/status/123355364040261632">
   @johndmitchell retweeted</A>
a link from Tara "Miss Rogue" Hunt:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
RT @missrogue: My presentation from this morning at
#ennovation: The 10 Mistakes I've made...so you don't have
to http://t.co/QE0DzF9tw
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Danger_Ahead.JPG">
   <IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/misc/danger-ahead.jpg"
        ALT="Danger ahead!"
        WIDTH="125"
        ALIGN="right" />
</A>

I liked the title and so followed the link to the slide
deck.  The talk includes a few good quotes and communicates
some solid experience on how to fail as a start-up, and
also how to succeed.  I was glad to have read.

The title notwithstanding, though, be prepared.  Other
people making mistakes will not -- cannot -- save you from
making the same mistakes.  You'll have to make them
yourself.

There are certain kinds of mistakes that don't need to be
made again, but that happens when we eliminate an entire
class of problems.  As a programmer, I mostly don't have
to re-make the mistakes my forebears made when writing code
in assembly.  They learned from their mistakes and <EM>made
tools</EM> that shield me from the problems I faced.  Now,
I write code in a higher-level language and let the tools
implement the right solution for me.

Of course, that means I face a new class of problems, or
an old class of problems in a new way.  So I make new kinds
of mistakes.  In the case of assembly and compilers, I am
more comfortable working at that level and am thus glad to
have been shielded from those old error traps, by the
pioneers who preceded me.

Starting a start up isn't the sort of problem we are able
to bypass so easily.  Collectively, we aren't good at all
at reliably creating successful start-ups.  Because the
challenges involve other people and economic forces, they
will likely remain a challenge well into our future.

<A HREF="http://www.carto.net/neumann/travelling/usa_westcoast_05_2002/05_eugene_oregon_sanddunes_22_23_05_2002/thumbnails3.html">
   <IMG SRC="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/misc/proceed-at-own-risk.png"
        ALT="Warning, proceed at your risk!"
        WIDTH="125"
        ALIGN="right" />
</A>

Even though Hunt and other people who have tried and failed
at start-ups can't save us from making these mistakes, they
still do us a service when they reflect on their experiences
and share with us.  They put up guideposts that say "Danger
ahead!" and "Don't go there!"

Why isn't that enough to save us?  We may miss the signs in
the noise of our world and walk into the thicket on our own.
We may see the warning sign, think "My situation is
different...", and proceed anyway.  We may heed their advice,
do everything we can to avoid the pitfall, and fail anyway.
Perhaps we misunderstood the signs.  Perhaps we aren't smart
enough yet to solve the problem.  Perhaps no one is, yet.
Sometimes, we won't be until we have made the mistake once
ourselves -- or thrice.

Despite this, it is valuable to read about our forebears'
experiences.  Perhaps we will recognize the problem part of
the way in and realize that we need to turn around before
going any farther.  Knowing other people's experiences can
leave us better prepared not to go too far down into the
abyss.  A mistake partially made is often better than a
mistake made all the way.

If nothing else, we fail and are better able to recognize
our mistake after we have made it.  Other people's experience
can help us put our own mistake into context.  We may be able
to understand the problem and solution better by bringing
those other experiences to bear on our own experience.

While I know that we have to make mistakes to learn, I don't
romanticize failure.  We should take reasonable measures to
avoid problems and to recognize them as soon as possible.
That's the ultimate value in learning what Hunt and other
people can teach us.
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