Might fear of failure hold me back?

It all starts in the mind and it manifests itself in some form. You are your own worst enemy because it is a choice to believe the doubt or to believe the uncertainty that's in front of you. I think it's quite uncomfortable to fail every day, and I think it is not something that is discussed early on in childhood. Early on it's about getting the grade and doing good and failure is seen as bad: bad reports, unhappy parents and so on.

But in startups, the only distinction between startups that fail and startups that succeed is that they have had marginally more successes than failures. They've all had the same amount of failures, but the successful startups have marginally more successes. So, there's a mentality shift, I think, and when new people come into the company, one of the first things I try and do, subtly, is to help them fail, which sounds weird, but make sure that their relationship with failure is one that will help them progress. The fear of failure is what stops us doing our best work.