Joshua Fetcher, a growth expert at 22Social, had worked in eight failed start-ups before he joined 22Social. Failed startups taught him a lot, and he learned what to do and what not to do. It was a painful process for him, but there was progress. He had struggled a lot during this journey. He had a junk car, a barely working laptop and had not bought new clothes for years. There were even times when he had slept in his vehicle and interviewed across California.

This struggle of his did not go in vain. He ended up as a growth expert in 22Social, a Facebook marketing start-up based in San Diego. A few months of work in the company made him realize that this group was different from others. Slowly the company doubled in revenue and started hiring more employees.

Some of the lessons he learned in his journey towards success are:

Create Value

Working for any company shows how much value one adds to the enterprise. When there are situations that lower one’s value bar, then one should disregard those situations and focus on the better part. Avoiding people responsible for reducing one’s value or output brings more success.

Don’t Miss the Opportunity to Speak

Not talking at the right time is one of the biggest regrets one can have. The risk of rejection leads to hesitation to speak up. But not taking changes in due course is the greatest danger made. One never knows a small suggestion might turn out to be a game changer to others.

Company Culture Matters

Companies with enthusiastic work culture and vibrant staff excite the employees to work comfortably and give 100 percent at work.

Reading Quality is more Important than Quantity

Not all the books are useful. When it comes to an understanding it does not matter how much one knows but what is important is what one reads. Joshua suggests reading books that are relevant to one’s goal.

Avoiding Distraction

One should develop the skill to avoid distractions. Growing social network is one of the biggest distractions. If one gets the same result even for the good work, then these are some factors to be kept in mind.

There is no short cut to Success

There are always more steps needed to reach the success than usually assumed at the beginning of the journey. Almost all the people want to make it to the finish line, but one has to put in all the efforts to reach the end successfully.

Failure is good if you learn from it

Any failure is of no use if it doesn’t change any person or if it does not teach anything. When it comes to failure, one must also remember that repeating something that doesn’t work is an insane thing to do. So one must quickly figure out new strategies when old tactics do not work out.