In this newsletter, find out the ultimate failure and why you need to learn the art of failing to be a successful founder.

IN THIS WEEK’S NEWSLETTER:

• 🚀 Fail Fast, Win Big! [True Story]

• 🚨 Be a Contributor to Startup Club!

• 🎥 Streaming Shows Every Entrepreneur Should Watch

• 🎉 Top 3 New Books for Entrepreneurs in 2025

• 🌎 Help Volodymyr Walk Again

Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes 13 seconds

Listen to this newsletter👇

🔥 TODAY’S CLUBHOUSE

Don’t miss today’s clubhouse at 2pm ET: Startup Ideas 2025

• Business Ideas – Launch, growth, and acquisition.

• Predictions – What does 2025 have in store for startups?

• Key Lessons – Branding, marketing, and scaling insights.

🚀 FAIL FAST, WIN BIG! [True Story]

Failure isn’t the end - it’s the formula.

At Paw.com, eight out of ten products we launch fail.

That’s not a typo.

We test. We launch. We cut.

The graveyard of ideas at paw.com is massive - but the two winners that break through?

They scale into multimillion-dollar businesses.

That’s the formula.

Fail fast. Scale big.

And yet, most entrepreneurs do the opposite.

They scale their failures and kill their winners.

I’ve seen it time and time again.

A few years ago, Michelle and I spent three years developing a product.

We finally cracked the materials - but we didn’t rush into manufacturing.

Instead of ordering 5,000 units and praying they’d sell, we launched a Kickstarter.

We spent $4,000 on a video.

If it hit, the agency would get an $8,000 bonus.

If it flopped, we’d move on.

That’s failing fast.

But more importantly, it’s failing safely.

The mistake most founders make?

They fall in love with their product.

You need to fall in love with your bank account.

If the data says it’s not working, kill it.

Don’t tweak for 6 more months. Don’t try to prove the market wrong.

Move on.

We’ve even run ads for products that didn’t exist yet - just to see if people clicked.

That’s how you test demand without burning capital.

And when we do find a winner?

We scale fast.

Amazon, Wayfair, Chewy, DTC…

Because if you wait too long, someone else will copy you - and they’ll launch your product before you do.

This isn’t about luck. It’s about systems.

Business isn’t about guessing anymore.

Test fast. Learn fast. Scale what works.

That’s how we’ve built every successful product at paw.com.

And that’s what we teach in Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.

Want more? Check out this deep dive on why startups fail 👇

— Colin C. Campbell

Disclaimer: Startup Club and its AI resources are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified lawyer for legal matters.

🚨 ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT STARTUPS?

Become a Startup Club Official Contributor and share your insights, experiences, and strategies with our thriving community.

We are looking for Creators/Leaders to write, host shows or be a guest contributor for Startup.Club!

📢 Send an application email to [email protected] 

🎥 STREAMING SHOWS EVERY ENTREPRENEUR SHOULD WATCH

In recent years, streaming platforms like Max, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple have revolutionized how we consume content. Binge-watching has become a cultural phenomenon. As an entrepreneur, I always look for valuable insights hidden within these shows - lessons that can inspire and shape how we lead, grow, and, in some cases, mitigate failure.

Here are my 5 ‘must-watch’ streaming shows every founder should check out to help sharpen their entrepreneurial skills:

5. WeCrashed

The rise and fall of WeWork and its visionary but reckless founder, Adam Neumann.

Lesson I Learned: In the book, Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat., I coined the term “Silicon Valley Disease”—when a company raises too much money, loses focus on efficiency, and chases growth at all costs. This show is a cautionary tale of that exact phenomenon.

4. Shark Tank

Entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to a panel of investors.

Lesson I learned: Too many entrepreneurs give away too much equity too early. Why trade 50% of your company’s profits for just $50K? It’s like paying a lifetime tax on your business.

3. The Dropout

The shocking story of Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, who promised to revolutionize blood testing.

Lesson I learned: There’s a fine line between vision and fraud. It’s one thing to be a bold optimist but another to knowingly sell something that isn’t possible.

2. The Profit

Marcus Lemonis invests in struggling businesses and helps turn them around.

Lesson I learned: Turning a business around is often easier than you think. The key? Making tough decisions in the best interest of the company — not your friends or family.

1. Silicon Valley

A hilarious yet insightful take on tech startups and their challenges.

Lesson I learned: It takes a community to build a startup. While I run an incubator that’s more structured than the one in the show, the reality remains: no founder succeeds alone. It takes a village to raise a startup.

Final Thought

Will watching these shows make you a successful entrepreneur?

Of course not.

But if you take the time to reflect on their messages, you’ll find lessons of encouragement, caution, and insight - helping you navigate the wild world of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is a trade, just like any other trade, and learning that trade is the key to success.

These shows may be entertaining but they are also valuable insights into how to start, scale, and exit a startup.

To see the full list of shows check out my article - HERE

🎉 TOP 3 NEW BOOKS FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN 2025 [WITH EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

Every great business starts with a story - and this year’s Axiom Business Book Award winners in the Entrepreneurship & Small Business category have shared some of the best.

These authors turned their real-world experience into powerful, practical books that inspire and guide entrepreneurs at every stage.

We caught up with them to learn more about what motivated them to write, the lessons they’ve learned, and the advice they’d pass along to fellow founders.

Q1. What inspired you to take the time to turn your entrepreneurial experiences into a book, and what story or lesson did you feel most compelled to share?

Colin C. Campbell: Quite frankly after 30 years as a serial entrepreneur with a string of failures and successes, it motivated me to share the formula of what works and what doesn’t so it can help others be successful in their startup journey. 

Alicia Miller: I saw a huge gap in understanding and felt the topic of private equity in franchising was so important it needed a detailed study. PE often doesn’t disclose its methods, valuations paid, and so on. It makes it more difficult especially for founders and franchisees to choose their optimal path. But the playbook is actually very straightforward and predictable. Valuation information and PE’s track record are available if you know where to look. 

Chris & David Sinkinson: We were looking for a way to “pay it forward” to our entrepreneurial peers. We were fortunate enough to have a successful outcome and wanted the same for others. To that end, we put together a book that chronologically detailed the experience of our company including our biggest wins and losses. We also wanted to check the conventional wisdom – what we call “startup myths” – that often do more harm than good. Hopefully others can learn from us and help reach their business dreams. 

Q2. Looking back, was there a piece of advice or unexpected lesson you uncovered while writing that you wish you had known earlier in your entrepreneurial journey?

Colin C. Campbell: Bad things do happen, so it is a good idea to Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat vs. Start. Scale. Fail. Repeat. 

Alicia Miller: When I was a multi-unit franchisee, I wish I had understood the impact of PE on franchise unit resales. PE is a buyer in some scale systems, not in others, and they pretty much avoid sub-scale systems altogether. All that activity, or lack of it, impacts exit multiples. At the time, I assumed I would simply exit to another franchisee when the time was right. Now I would prioritize investing in systems with more buyer activity and thus more deal competition…or systems with all the right signals to suggest it would eventually get there during my ownership period.

Franchise entrepreneurs also should understand PE re-trading, profit-seeking behaviors, and their track record in franchising before investing.

Chris & David Sinkinson: Absolutely. In a way, we wrote the book with this question in mind: what would we have wanted to know 10 years ago that we didn’t know then? There are a lot of surprising revelations – I think though that the biggest one for us was that you need to live up to societal expectations of what a startup “ought” to be if you want to be successful. Later in our business’ life we’d often use the conventional wisdom as a guide on what not to do. 

Q3. If readers were to walk away with just one actionable idea or mindset shift from your book, what would you want that to be?

Colin C. Campbell: Entrepreneurship is a trade like any other trade, and the key to success is mastering that trade. 

Alicia Miller: Don’t put up with information gatekeepers. Push to educate yourself and get the performance data you need before investing in, or launching, any franchise business. PE firms have a due diligence playbook that you can mirror to either make good acquisition choices yourself, or anticipate what these professional buyers will be looking for if you’re thinking about exit strategies. Using the professional buyer lens on your business is a terrific tool to think differently about your enterprise value creation strategy. It helps you get outside of yourself a bit to look objectively at the business and make smarter decisions.

Chris & David Sinkinson: Don’t look for validation in society or among your peers. Look for validation in the market. Drive to early profit and ignore the haters.

To read the full article visit → Here

🌎 HELP VOLODYMYR WALK AGAIN

At Startup Club, we’re committed to helping startups and making a real impact where it matters most.

Twenty-three years ago, my wife and I adopted our son from Kyiv, Ukraine. His mother was Ukrainian, and his father was Russian. 

We fell in love with the country and later co-founded GeeksforLess, a global IT services company, with my brother and a partner.

Check out my full story is here:

When the war broke out, we knew we had to take action. We raised money to help victims of Ukraine. 

Now, we need your help.

We’re rallying together to support Volodymyr (which, coincidentally, is also my son’s middle name) in his journey to walk again.

🚨 Read about his story → here

Startup Club and Colin C. Campbell are raising funds to help Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr, who lost both legs in combat, get life-changing prosthetics in the U.S.

We’ve raised $14,000 of the $28,000 goal.

100% of donations go directly to those in need — no overhead, just impact. Even $10 makes a difference.

🚨Donate here → HelpForUkraine.club 

🚀 IS IT TIME TO SELL?

Time to Sell Index:

Buyers Still Hold the Power → 6.9 out of 100.

2025 is still favoring buyers, making it a tough environment for sellers. That said, there are early signs of a rebound.

As the IPO market slowly gains momentum, the outlook for startups could begin to brighten.

🔥 CHECK ME OUT ON TIKTOK!

@startupclubhq

The biggest dragon we face as entrepreneurs isn’t the competition — it’s our own emotional state. The fear, the doubt, the outside noise ... See more

🚀 SUPPORTING STARTUP.CLUB

Thank you for reading along for another issue of the StartUp Club newsletter! I hope you genuinely look forward to opening the StartUp.Club newsletter every month. You can further support StartUp.Club by:

1. Sharing it with a friend or fellow entrepreneur!

2. Responding to this email and letting me know what you think. We love feedback around here! What do you want to see more of? What are you not interested in?

3. Picking up your copy of Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.

And if you made it this far, thank you for reading.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of the StartUp.Club Newsletter.

— Colin C. Campbell