Jun 26, 2023 · 16m · founders-journal
Failure is Part of the Journey
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Morning Brew co-founder Alex Lieberman candidly explores his decision to shut down his backyard game venture, The Plunge, breaking down the financial, strategic, and emotional dimensions of startup failure. Through systematic opportunity cost analysis and vulnerability, he illustrates why knowing when to quit is a vital skill for long-term entrepreneurial success.
Statements from this episode (5)
Alex Lieberman spent $37,000 developing his backyard game The Plunge
“I have spent 37,000 dollars of my own personal money on the game.”
Toy companies typically pay 3% to 5% net revenue for game licenses
“How it would typically work in the game industry is you can pitch your product to a Hasbro or a Mattel or a Nerf, and if they want to license it, you basically give up all control of the game, and you get something like three to five percent of net revenue as …”
Lieberman shuts down backyard game startup The Plunge to cut losses
“And I spent the last few weeks thinking about it, and I made the decision to go with option D, which is to cut my losses and throw in the towel for the plunge.”
Alex Lieberman believes building a B2B business is easier than B2C
“It's B to B, which I generally think is easier than building a B to C business.”
Lieberman attributes The Plunge's failure to high product-market fit costs
“I understand that the plunge failed because it didn't leverage my unique abilities, because trying to create new consumer behaviors is very hard, and because the cost to possibly find product market fit was greater than the cost I was willing to sink into the …”