Entrepreneurship is like jumping from a plane and building the parachute on the road down. You don't always get it right – and believe me, I miss some stitches along the way.

As Setschedule's CEO, I escalated a company from $ 0 to over $ 10 million in repeated annual income, built a team that grew up to over 1,000 employees and lived to tell the tale. But behind every pointed wrapping were moments that, at the time, felt like disaster.

Looking back, the worst decisions I made were not just painful – they were needed. They gave me the means I needed to become a bestmanoperator and investor. Here are the three terrible main choices that (ironically) paved the way for real success.

Connected: 3 biggest mistakes that made me a better entrepreneur

1. Growth at all costs: Great illusion

Here is a novice action: believe that growth solves everything. Income cures all diseases, right? error

Early in Setschedule, I drank the same Kool-Aid many capitalists of entrepreneurship pass: grow quickly, ask questions later. Hire everyone. Open new offices. Light money on fire if it looks quite impressive.

For a while, it worked. We escaped like crazy, celebrated our points and displayed champagne. Then came real estate market shifts. Suddenly, our “indestructible” model was exposed. The income slowed down. Above remained monstrous. And let's not get into the way some competitors acted as if they were throwing a holiday during difficult times.

The ugly truth is that fast growth without discipline It's a time bomb. Growth is not success if it cannot survive the turbulence. And by the way – VCs are not always right. Some tips come with a giant asterisk that says: “Not responsible for when this blows.”

Today, we focus on healthy, calculated growth. First the client's obsession. Second sound finances. Vanity Metrics dead last.

Lesson learned: Growth is amazing – until you realize you have to pay for it.

2. Choosing the wrong partner: the fastest way to burn

You know how they say business partners Are they like spouses? They are wrong. Actually actually worse – because at least in marriage, there is usually cake.

Over the years, I have seen (and lived) what happens when you choose the wrong partner. As an investor today, I see it unfolding all the time: the founders trying to quietly jump from the gang of their companies, citing “health issues”, “new opportunities” or “pivot life”.

Translation? They want outside. FAST

When you connect yourself to someone – whether you start a company or are buying one – you are betting on their character, not for their resume. You need someone who is ready to crawl through the mud when things become ugly, not someone who controls in the first collision.

I have partned with the wrong people before. Believe me, no quantity of contracts, networking of net capital or board meetings can fix a partner who has already disappeared.

When I look back in Setschedule and my later investments, the best results were always with partners they had duddy. The partners who took the hits and stayed in the war.

Lesson learned: a bad partner will sink the ship faster than bad income.

Connected: A bad business partner can cost you millions – here's how to avoid a toxic partnership

3. Employment of the wrong people: Rests roulette

Let's talk about scale employment – a brutal form of art, where it is very easy to choose the wrong players.

In Setschedule, we have employed thousands over the years. Early, we made the classic mistake: tracking credentials. Decorated ranks, back of the company with blue chip, impeccable paper references, all looked amazing.

In reality? Some of the most glowing were the first to be thrown into the ship when they would become tough – or worse, the first to complain while others were rolling the sleeves.

MVP the truth were the ones who really bought MISSION. Those who believe-not because of a six-figure package, but because they wanted to build something bigger than them. They did not care about corporate policy, title improvements or lunches fed. They took care to win together.

Today, when I am hiring or advising companies, I say to the founders: hire missionaries, not mercenaries. You want people who drink kool-aid (voluntarily), not those who negotiate how many kool-AID they get before they appear.

Lesson learned: an excellent company is not built by collecting resume – was built by collecting believers.

Connected: 3 biggest employment errors you can make

error Are not wounds on your entrepreneurial journey – they are signs.

Following growth blindly, getting wrong partners and employment based on surface level brightness, all might have removed me. Instead, they forced me to build thicker skin, sharper instincts and better businesses.

Setschedule's success was not despite mistakes – it was because of what the mistakes taught us.

So if you are there now, staring at a bad decision, remember this: sometimes the worst movements you make by pushing you to the best version of yourself.

You just have to survive them first.