The Creation of Defeat 90: The Entrepreneur Failure Rebellion

"Explore how real entrepreneurship experiences and business failure stories are reshaping success in 2025. Join the Defeat 90 movement to learn from shared experiences."

If there was a checklist of all the horrible things you must go through to call yourself an entrepreneur, I have checked them all to some degree. This may not seem like the most positive way to start the article. Unlike most people who brag about their successes, you must understand that my failures are essential to my credibility in creating Defeat 90.

Over the years, I have talked to hundreds of business owners, and I have heard more about colossal failures than tremendous successes. What's even wilder is that as I get older, even some of the great successes have turned into terrible failures. Pictureing the business world as an ocean keeps things in perspective for me. There are stunning, amazing parts to the ocean experience at one moment, and the next minute, it can kill you if you do not know what you are doing.

I believe we have gotten into this dangerous habit of celebrating and focusing too much on the 10% of business cultures with uber success. We have bought into this lie that if we hustle, we can be a millionaire by the time we are 30 or something like that. Believe me, I tried and was very close to pulling off a deal that would have done that, but I suffered the consequences of swinging too big too fast. The distortion of reality regarding the expectations of success devastates businesses.

We see the stories of a few tech startups that become billionaires overnight or YouTubers that portray lavish lifestyles that started with just a camera. The one thing that I will never forget is that a mentor once told me about the companies that succeed. That luck or the right timing is more significant to their success than skill or a fantastic product. Not to take away from the companies that have won, but I have seen some talented entrepreneurs with groundbreaking products fail because they were too early for the market with no education plan.

My point is that when a business takes off exponentially very quickly, there is some definite luck involved, or it is the exact right moment the market needs what the business provides. Failure is more the norm in business than soaring profits. After several failed companies, the average age of an incredibly successful entrepreneur is 45.

So, what do these failed businesses represent that we are overlooking? The dreamer who sunk their entire life savings or maxed out their credit cards to build their dream business "that could not fail". It also represents the families and friends who loaned their life savings or maxed out their credit cards to support that dreamer. The thing is, the odds of that entrepreneur making in the current dynamics of the business world is unlikely. The fallout of the 90% of failure in business is why I created Defeat 90.

I experienced entrepreneurship at a young age, as my dad was a fantastic craftsman but a terrible entrepreneur. This lifestyle led to us losing multiple homes, sometimes not knowing where our next meal would come from, and many other things that hurt as children. The pain I felt then and now from the roar of the business ocean has given me the passion to help navigate as many people as possible to safe, more beautiful waters.

I myself, who probably should have learned from that pain and not been an entrepreneur, have started 16 companies. As you are in the ocean long enough, you begin to notice patterns and recognize the sign in the sky of what's coming, and you start to make better decisions. Those experiences that I have learned through failure will inform my future success. In my journey, I realized how much of it has been me alone figuring it out for myself. There have been some short-lived mentors and many books, but I learned mainly through failure. I have realized that I am not alone in this solo lifestyle as an entrepreneur in the open ocean.

The heart of Defeat 90 is changing the Isolation mentality in entrepreneurship. Yes, we are busy, but what if one honest conversation, hearing about the failures/experiences of fellow business owners, that could save you 20 hours of going down the wrong path?

We are too interested in bragging about our little wins to feel more secure about ourselves than having a real conversation that could give us security from actual experience. It goes back to what I said at the beginning of the article. We are too obsessed with success. We miss the opportunity to avoid failure by learning from those who have experienced it.

So how do we beat the crushing losses we and our families feel from lack of experience? We start a business failure rebellion and call it Defeat 90. Notice how there was no "I" in that statement? This movement is not about me; I am not the guru to fix your business. Defeat 90 Is about you and all the other small business owners tired of being out to sea with no clear direction. The adage that a rising tide will raise all ships could not be more accurate here. The idea of this rebellion stems from micro-learning in specific situations to give the tools you need to succeed.

We all have lessons to teach about the wins and losses we have had, and there is no one to new or experienced who can't benefit. The stats prove that we need each other because there are not hundreds of reasons for failure in business. There are about 20 repeated mistakes entrepreneurs make that create a majority of the failures. That tells me if we could just have an authentic conversation in the Defeat 90 Community about what is going on, you might avoid failure and find clear waters ahead.