Worst case scenario business failure: the real shape.
Your worst case scenario business failure probably ends with a black screen, because your mind has never drawn what comes after. However, economists have studied failed businesses closely. As a result, life after closing has a measured shape that is often painful and almost never blank.
An engineer in a dumpling factory.
Bae Han-sung was a civil engineer with fifteen years of experience in construction technology. In 2015 he quit, because he wanted to be in charge of his own work. Then his accessories company failed, and his travel startup folded too. So for about a year he worked two jobs. He spent days at a plastics factory and nights at a dumpling factory.
Why your worst case scenario business failure goes dark.
Most people's version is worse than Bae's, and vaguer. The business closes, and then the screen simply goes black. Imagining the worst case usually gives you a few vivid frames, like the last day or the empty bank account. After that, nothing appears, since your imagination has never been asked to draw it.
The missing footage holds the fear.
You aren't only afraid of the fall itself. Instead, much of the weight comes from fear of the unknown future that your mind refuses to picture. Therefore, planning feels impossible, because you cannot plan for a future you cannot see. The evidence offers that missing footage, and it is rarely the ending you imagine.
Redraw your worst case scenario business failure tonight.
Write down the few frames you picture when your business fails, then note where the film goes black.
Under that blank spot, write one question you would want answered about the year after.
From the book.
Here's what the evidence says instead. You picture life after a failed business as a blank. But a failed business is one of the most studied bad outcomes in economics, and the people who lived through it have a measured shape, one that is often painful and almost never blank.
I Want to Start a Business but I'm a Coward, chapter 6: What happened to the people it happened to
Questions about worst case scenario business failure.
Is a worst case scenario business failure really the end of everything?
Rarely, according to the records. People who lived through it have a measured shape afterwards, often painful but almost never blank.
Why does life after failure feel so frightening to picture?
Because your imagination has never been asked to draw it. So the fear lives in that missing footage.
What happened to Bae Han-sung after two failed businesses?
For about a year he worked at a plastics factory by day and a dumpling factory by night.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 6, “What happened to the people it happened to”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Worst case scenario business failure: the real shape.
- 02 Earnings after failed startup: what records show.
- 03 Hidden costs of startup failure: what it cost me.
- 04 Starting again after a failed business: two stories.
- 05 Grief after business failure: the harder evidence.
- 06 Talk to someone who closed a business: the interview.
- 07 Startup failure post mortems: when nobody will talk.