MBA2605 How to Turn a Business Failure Into a Major Success - The $100 MBA Show

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: Episode MBA2605 – How to Turn a Business Failure Into a Major Success

Release Date: March 31, 2025
Host: Omar Zenhom

Introduction

In Episode MBA2605 of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom delves into the transformative power of failure in the entrepreneurial journey. Drawing from his personal experiences, Omar illustrates how setbacks can serve as pivotal moments that propel businesses toward remarkable success. This episode is a compelling narrative for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing resilience, adaptability, and the invaluable lessons that come from overcoming failures.

The Common Thread Among Successful Entrepreneurs

Omar opens the discussion by debunking the myth that failure indicates incompetence. Instead, he posits that failure is a universal precursor to success among entrepreneurs.

"Most people think failure means you're doing something wrong. It doesn't. Failure just means you just haven't figured it out yet." [01:10]

He highlights that the initial iteration of any business idea is often flawed, and embracing this reality is crucial for growth.

Failure #1: The Flopped Podcast

Omar recounts his first foray into podcasting with "People Who Know Their Shit," an interview-based format that failed to gain traction despite featuring notable guests like Gary Vaynerchuk.

"It was a horrendous failure. Webinar Ninja, the software company I built over 10 years and got acquired recently, before it was a software, I tried selling a webinar course that no one wanted." [04:00]

Key Issues Identified:

Lack of Unique Value: Omar realized he was mimicking successful podcasts without leveraging his unique strengths as an educator.
Format Limitations: The long-form, scripted interviews didn't resonate with the target audience seeking practical, actionable content.

Turning Point:

During a cross-country road trip, Omar and his partner Nicole critically assessed their podcast's performance. Observing top podcasts, Omar recognized the need to pivot from interviews to a lesson-based format that aligned with his educational expertise.

"Instead of making a long form podcast, let's do a short, fast, practical podcast, lesson-based podcast." [06:45]

Outcome:

This strategic pivot led to the launch of The $100 MBA Show in August 2014, which focused on delivering concise, actionable business lessons. The new format was a resounding success, garnering over 300 million downloads and winning the Best of Apple Podcasts award.

Failure #2: The DIY Webinar Guide

Omar's next venture was the "DIY Webinar Guide," a comprehensive course designed to help individuals run effective webinars. Despite his belief in the potential of webinars, the course failed to attract buyers.

"I built the actual tool that does it for them. I launched the first version of Webinar Ninja in just a few months. It was rough, it had bugs, but people still wanted it." [08:30]

Key Challenges:

Market Misalignment: Users preferred turnkey solutions over educational content, indicating a demand for practical tools rather than instructional guides.
Execution Flaws: The course required users to piece together various software components, which proved too cumbersome.

Pivot to Success:

Acknowledging the misstep, Omar shifted focus from education to product development, leading to the creation of Webinar Ninja—a user-friendly platform that streamlined the webinar process.

"I need to actually pivot the implementation of my idea instead of forcing the course to work." [09:15]

Result:

Webinar Ninja rapidly gained traction, amassing over 30,000 business users and generating millions in revenue. Its success culminated in an acquisition by ProProfs, significantly enhancing Omar's financial standing and cementing his reputation in the software industry.

Lessons Learned from Failure

Omar distills his experiences into actionable insights for entrepreneurs:

Honest Self-Assessment:

"Be honest with yourself. Just get an honest look at your situation." [04:50]

Recognizing and admitting flaws is the first step toward meaningful improvement.
Embrace Adaptability:

Instead of persisting with failing strategies, be willing to pivot and explore alternative approaches that better align with market needs.
Leverage Unique Strengths:

Identify and utilize your distinct skills and knowledge to differentiate your offerings from competitors.
Launch Early, Iterate Quickly:

"Don't Perfect. Launch, learn and improve." [12:00]

Releasing a minimum viable product allows for real-world feedback and swift enhancements.
Check Your Ego:

Omar emphasizes the importance of humility in accepting that perfection is unattainable and that growth often stems from recognizing and rectifying mistakes.

"You got to check your ego at the door. You can't have any ego when it comes to trying to get to success." [13:30]
View Failure as Feedback:

Every setback provides valuable information that can guide future efforts and prevent repeating the same mistakes.

Conclusion: Failure as the Journey

Omar concludes by reinforcing that failure is not merely an obstacle but an integral part of the entrepreneurial path. He shares his personal gratitude for his failures, which not only shaped his successful ventures but also imbued his achievements with deeper meaning.

"Failure isn't just part of the journey. It is the journey." [14:25]

He encourages listeners to persist through challenges, leveraging each failure as a learning opportunity that paves the way for future success.

Final Thoughts

Omar Zenhom's narrative in this episode serves as an empowering reminder that failure is not the end but a stepping stone towards achieving business excellence. By embracing vulnerability, maintaining resilience, and continuously adapting, entrepreneurs can transform their setbacks into significant triumphs.

For more actionable business insights, subscribe to The $100 MBA Show on YouTube or visit 100mba.net. Join the community of driven individuals committed to building, growing, and scaling their businesses with minimal resources.

Transcript

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Omar Zenhom (0:45)

Early Every successful entrepreneur has one thing in common. They've failed. Big time. I know because I've been there. Before the hundred dollar NBA show became an award winning podcast I launched a failed podcast that totally went nowhere. Before Webinar Ninja became a multimillion dollar software, I spent months building a course that totally flopped. But those failures, believe it or not, they were the best thing that ever happened to me. Because as Ben Horowitz says in one of my favorite books, the Hard Thing About Hard Things, sometimes to create a great product, you have to create a bad one first. Today I'll show you exactly how I turned failure into success. And how you can too. Welcome Back to the $100 NBA Show. I'm Omar Zenholm, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to help you start, grow and scale your business. Most people think failure means you're doing something wrong. It doesn't. Failure just means you just haven't figured it out yet. In business, the first version of your idea usually absolutely sucks. Okay? That's normal. This podcast, the $100 MBA show, wasn't my first podcast. The first one totally flopped. It was a horrendous failure. Webinar Ninja, the software company I built over 10 years and got acquired recently. Before it was a software, I tried selling a webinar course that no one wanted. But each failure taught me something. Taught me something critical, something that led me to a big success in each one. And I'm going to break down exactly how you can do the same. I'm going to actually walk you through the stories of My biggest failures and show you how it helped me become successful, what it showed me. And this is all to say that failure is a requirement of success. Once you start realizing that, you stop trying to avoid failure, you stop trying to not lose, and you just try to win. And if you fail, that's okay. Failure number one, the podcast that flopped. Before the $100 MBA show, I launched a different podcast. That podcast was an interview podcast. It's called People who Know Their Shit. It was a longer formed podcast, a little over an hour each episode. It wasn't so polished, but it was very scripted and I was very nervous as an interviewer, just to be flat out honest, I was horrible at interviewing, okay? It was boring. And it wasn't any different or any better than any other podcast. And guess what? Nobody listened. Of course nobody listened. So why did it fail? Well, I did something that really, I think was very helpful, and I think a lot of people should do more often of is be honest with yourself. Just get an honest look at your situation. Nicole and I were doing a road trip from San Diego to New York. We were going across country and we had a lot of time in the open road to talk and discuss why this podcast is totally failing. I mean, we're working hard, we're getting guests. We actually got Gary Vaynerchuk on our show early in the days. It was like 2014. We're really excited. But on one of the best episodes we ever had, we had 400 downloads, which is okay, but it was less than how much traffic I was getting for a blog post. And just for comparison, some of our best episodes on this podcast get over 300,000 downloads. So something was wrong. So I just took an honest look. I went to the business section in Apple Podcasts and I looked at all the top podcasts. I looked at people like Tim Ferriss, who has four New York Times bestsellers. I saw people like Jordan Harbinger, who was podcasting before the iPhone. Like in 2007, I saw podcasts like Startup by Alex Bloomberg, who came from npr. He's got a wealth of experience. How am I going to compete with these people? Trying to just be a lookalike podcast, trying to just hang with these people and do the same thing. So the first thing I did wrong was I was copying what I thought podcasts were supposed to be instead of making something unique. I didn't look into inwards. I just look outwards, looked at other podcasts. I didn't look inwards and say, what unique value can I add? Well, One unique value is that I'm an educator. I have a master's in education. I've taught for over 10 years. So I'm probably a better teacher than all these other podcasts. They're great at their other things and they're, they have their own acclaim. But when it comes to teaching, I'm probably the best one just because of my unique experiences. So why am I interviewing people? I should be teaching on the podcast. And that's when we realized we need to do something different. I could have quit right there. I could have said, I stink at podcasting. I'm never going to do podcasts again. But instead, I asked myself the tough questions to get to a decent answer. Some of those answers was, what do business owners actually need? You know, they already have interview podcasts and backstory podcasts and, you know, narrative podcasts, but really some people just need to learn something so they can build upon it and then come back again, learn something new. And we really wanted to build language lessons for the language of business. We turned everything on its head. We said, okay, instead of making a long form podcast, let's do a short, fast, practical podcast, lesson based podcast. That's when we scrapped the first podcast and launched the a hundred dollar MBA show in August of 2014. Instead of giving up, I pivoted. I learned from my mistakes. I realized what I was doing wrong and I tried something different. I made my episodes short and practical. I focused on real, actual lessons. I made it a daily show. At the time, it was daily, every single day to build momentum. And it took off. Today, the hundred dollar MBA show has over 300 million downloads and counting. We won the Best of Apple Podcasts, which is awarded to, you know, a handful of podcasts every year. It's like winning an Oscar in podcasting. I've been invited to speak on the biggest stages on the world. My life completely changed because of the success of this podcast. The lesson here, the first version might not work. It might not actually even look like it even has hope. It can completely be a failure like my podcast was. But it will teach you what you need to do. And if you could absorb that blow and just be honest with yourself and just be okay. That was horrible. That was bad. I hated it. What can I learn from this? What do I need to do now? What has it taught me? Let's get to failure number two. The DI webinar guide. This is a guy that nobody bought, right? I believed in webinars so much that I wanted to create a powerful tool, a Course, a program to help people run webinars more effectively. How to put all the pieces together, all the technology together to make it happen. I mean, this is 2014, so there's not a lot of webinar software out there. You had to, you know, hodgepodge or landing page software and email marketing software and the streaming software. And then the recording of the webinar had to go somewhere, and then you have to put that on a page. You had the chat separate. It's all a mess. So I spent months making the DIY webinar guide. I thought it was a brilliant idea to help people. I made video lessons. I created templates and worksheets and everything. And I built a sales page and I launched it. And then I got two sales, and one of them was a chargeback, meaning somebody used, you know, a fake credit card or a fraudulent credit card. The other one was a sympathy sale from a friend of mine, John Link Dumas. Shout out to you, John, but why did it fail? People didn't want to learn how to build a webinar. They wanted a tool to do it for them. I learned that the hard way. No one wants to do the work. No one wants to do what I was doing every single week. They didn't want education. They wanted a software. And that's when it realized, okay, I need to actually pivot the implementation of my idea instead of forcing the course to work, instead of saying, okay, maybe I need to change my pricing, maybe, no. It was obvious to me that when nobody bought like that, you know, just a sympathy sale from a friend, that this is not what the market wants. I asked myself empowering questions like, what if I built a software that people actually wanted that made it easy to run a webinar? And that's how webinar Ninja was born. Instead of selling education, I built the actual tool that does it for them. I launched the first version of Webinar Ninja in just a few months. It was rough, it had bugs, but people still wanted it. I improved it based on feedback. And over time, the users started to grow and grow, and I gave them what they needed because I was listening to my users. We iterated, we improved. And over 30,000 businesses have run webinars on webinar Ninja. It made millions of dollars, and it's helped so many people. It became such a valuable product and tool that we were approached and we got acquired recently, last year by Proprofs, who acquired Webinar Ninja and now is growing that software even bigger. That acquisition changed my life forever. Financially. And it just was crazy that it all happened because of a failure. Sometimes failure is just pointing you towards the right direction, towards the right idea. It tells you don't do this.