“Success is how many failures I can take without falling over”: Entrepreneurial stories from four business leaders

The entrepreneurial journey can be rewarding and vindicating, but it can also be scary, isolating and full of pitfalls.

Speaking at the Commonwealth Bank’s Pop Up Innovation Hub in Melbourne this week, four entrepreneurs and business advisers shared their stories of startup wins, fails, and pain points, and how through it all they managed to cultivate resilience and determination.

From corporate life to startups, health-foods to irritating investors, here’s what they’ve learned.

Marshall Hughes, founder and chief executive of Passel

Passel is less than a year old, but the Melbourne-based crowdsourced delivery platform has already scored a spot at a global Silicon Valley tech conference and secured $60,000 in angel investment from Gavan Stewart and Niels Van Hove.

Despite these early achievements, founder and chief executive Marshall Hughes told attendees at the Innovation Hub he routinely suffers setbacks and frustration on his entrepreneurial journey.

“The bullet we have to take is, ‘Oh, so you’re the Uber for couriers’,” Hughes said. It’s something the entrepreneur often hears from investors or potential customers — that is when he’s not getting compared to Melbourne-founded delivery management startup GetSwift, another pet peeve of his. Read more

Angela Castles - Smart Company - 25 Aug 2017