You hear it all the time: "Fail Fast", "Celebrate Failure" and "Learn from Failure."  But is that really what matters?  Does knowing what doesn't work actually help you get significantly closer to what will work?  Are we predisposed to rationalize failure, because we don't want to feel like the insane work hours of a startup were a waste? I don't think we should ignore failure, but we need to do more to study, and immitate success.  There is 100X more to learn and gain value from success. 

Let's examine this topic...

Startup Bootcamp this past weekend was an absolutely amazing day of entrepreneurship in Boston. Over 1,000 students, startupers and investors showed up live with another 1,500+ watching online.  You can read great recaps by Tim Chae, Jason Baptiste, Dan Ronken and BostonWomenPreneurs.  What I'd like to focus on what the key elements were in the event that we should ensure all future events take into consideration.

 Every once in a while a book comes along that despite a seemingly simple subject ends up being a very impactful and thought provoking book.  Seth Godin's "the dip" proves to be exactly that type of book.

"the dip" is all about understanding opportunities and yourself; there are many things we can all spend our time doing, but how many of them can you be the absolute best?  And how do you tell the difference between the struggle before success and the slow, painful death-march to failure?

As the book cover suggest, there's really two parts, which I'll highlight now: When to Quit and When to Stick.