‘Fail Fast, Fail Smart, Fail Forward’ is a mantra which is of great significance to all startup founders. In their minds, failure is a part of their road to success.

A local startup company introducing its products to an international visitor at a recent fair

This motto was repeated continuously by Mr Doron Lebovich, the Israeli Ambassador to Viet Nam and Mr Yotam Tzuker, the CEO and co-founder of Tech7, an umbrella organization that serves to connect all members of Southern Israel’s tech ecosystem, during their meeting with young entrepreneur in Da Nang in late November.

In Israel, Yotam is famous for his important role as a community builder, linking elements in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. He is a driven entrepreneur that believes in and understands the importance of building his surrounding community in concurrence with his personal career development. He has actively involved in organising hundreds of startup and tech events, creating a launch pad for many projects to access investment capitals.

Recalling his unforgettable failure, Yotam said, the Israeli company Waze Mobile developed a GPS navigation software app. It works on smartphones and tablet computers that have GPS support. Waze describes its app as a community-driven GPS navigation app, which is free to download and use.

Several years ago, Yotam and his friend want to develop an application that connects people travelling on same route and  at the same time. This is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves, using the Waze platform.

Prior to Yotam’s meeting with a Waze representative for cooperation, he heard the news that Waze announced the launch of an application which is similar to Yotam’s product.

At the same time, he drew a lesson that it is necessary to find out which companies once launched similar products.

During his meeting with the Israeli guests, Mr Do Kien Giang, the former Deputy General Director of Danameco Medical Joint-Stock Corporation, said developing start-up projects is very tough as challenges, difficulties, and even repeated failures can become inevitable startup problems.

Giang encountered many failures that did not deeply upset such a strong-willed person holding strong passion for startups like him, and he had learnt valuable experience from his failure instead.

He has always kept in his mind that “Failure is the best worst thing you can have, but only if you use it smartly. If your plans fail it means that you need to alter your methods, make some changes, and do it differently”.

Fearlessness of failure, ability to ask questions, international-scale thinking and curiosity are the qualities needed to become a successful entrepreneur. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Also at the talk, Israeli Ambassador to Viet Nam Doron Lebovich conveyed the message: “Nurture and develop your creativity, dare to think, dare to do, and dare to accept failure”. The attitude toward failure of ‘no fear,’ has inspired Israel become the “Startup Nation”.

Over the 15-year period, exactly between 1999 and 2014, a total of more than 10,100 businesses were established in Israel, half of which are still active, and 2.6% generate an annual revenue of more than 100 million$ each.