DO. FAIL. LEARN. REPEAT.

The Truth Behind Building Businesses.

Since I was seven years old I have wanted to be a writer. More specifically back then I wanted to be a journalist but I have long since realised that I love writing, not reporting.

I have been building businesses since I was 16 years old. That much time building things comes with a lot of failure. Over the past 18 years I have learned how to understand my failures and reframe them into a flywheel for myself. That flywheel can be summarised with four simple words:

DO. FAIL. LEARN. REPEAT.

Those four simple words summarise how I live and build things. They are also the title of my new book!

My debut book is a business autobiography about the last 15 years of failures that I have endured and the few successes I have found.

You can buy the book on Amazon if you are outside of South Africa: https://amzn.to/2MlDSwt

If you are in SA then head to your nearest book store nation wide or visit my website and buy a signed copy: www.nicharalambous.com.

I have been publishing on Medium for many years now and without this platform I definitely wouldn’t have had it in me to put a book together.

Here’s a short snippet:

Cutting expenses is a great way to make sure that you give yourself the best chance of survival. Growing revenue depends very much on things you can’t control; will your customers buy your product, how many will they buy, will your suppliers come to the party and give you a good price, can your clients pay on time, etc, etc, etc. Cutting expenses is a harder but much simpler route to go. It’s hard because you’re cutting up this thing you’ve worked so hard to construct. It’s simpler because you are in control.

At Motribe we were bleeding cash. It wasn’t a paper cut kind of bleed, it was more of an aorta kind of bleed straight from the heart of the business and gushing from the neck. We were losing money quicker than we were making it. I took a salary cut month after month to make sure I could pay my staff and keep the business afloat.