A short interview excerpt where Reid Hoffman reflects on how experiencing startup failure shaped his mindset. He advises entrepreneurs to expect failures (citing statistics that most startups fail), to treat entrepreneurship as a sequence of attempts (saying it may take several companies to succeed), and to learn from each attempt—improving relationships with investors, cofounders, teams, partners, and customers. Hoffman uses a batting-average metaphor (e.g., "you cannot bat a thousand... you can bat 400") and emphasizes resilience and iterative learning.
When that failed, we just sort of sold it and went sideways. How did you feel as an entrepreneur? Where were you at, like, in terms of your mindset? Did it make you hungrier? Did it make you depressed? How does it make you into Reid Hoffman?
Well, so one of the things I think I said in my own mind that's wise is advice they give entrepreneurs. And when I told my dad when I started social, I said, look, it'll take somewhere between three and even five companies in order to be successful. Because if you look at the statistics of this, you know, the huge majority of these companies fail 7 out of 10 or something. So you should presume that you're going in. You say, look, I might bat better than average. Like, I may be in the upper end of the bell curve. 400, which. Which, of course, you know, everyone thinks they are. But sure, you maybe. You may think it. You may be right. But even in that case, you cannot bat a thousand. You cannot bat 800. Right. You can bat 400.
So you actually had this coming in. A lot of young entrepreneurs don't have this.
Yes, well, and I think it's really critical to do because you think about when you're playing that game, you're thinking about, I really. I'm playing really hard. I'm all in. I really want to win this. But I'm thinking about also what the next game looks like and why that matters. Well, what's your relationship with investors? What's your relationship with your co founders? What's your relationship with the team that you hire? What's your relationship with partners and customers? Right? What are you learning? And when you learn and you go through something, you go, okay, well, if I go through that again, I'll do that differently, because now I understand this, this, and this, Right? And that was really essential. So when I went through social net, look, I really. I was bummed. I really wanted to work. I thought I had a really good plan. I learned a huge number of things, but it was kind of like, okay, now I've learned them. Now it's time to get back to bat. Yeah.
Do you have one lesson from that, one critical mistake you made that just sort of sticks with you?
Well, because, I mean, I have 10.
Of those from each of my companies, right?
There's 10 more or more. So a couple of them. So one is. First is, look, there's a bunch of paradoxes in entrepreneurship. Like, you both have to think long term and short term. So long term is, this is what we're building when we're getting out in the future. But short term is how I solve this problem. So frequently people give you advice is don't focus on financing strategy as what you're doing.
