- Jared Seidel
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- I Failed 5 Times
I Failed 5 Times
I got fired from my first job out of college, almost lost $100k on an Airbnb, and dropped $60k on a business that only made $15k.
And I’m here to tell you that’s pretty normal.
Most people you know that have business and career success stories have a list just like this, they just don’t share it.
In the news and social media, you see the crazy success stories. Like how someone “hit $50K MRR in 45 days.” That’s some hot garbage and I can smell it from miles away. Yes. First time success can happen. But what you don’t know, or see, is how that person got there.
If someone is telling you they hit a milestone like that, those are either scams, they got extremely lucky, or they never spoke about how they failed multiple times before their “success.”
Most people forget to mention the part where the successful people we admire failed multiple times before anything stuck, or pivoted until they made something that did.
Yes, first-time success exists. My friend Jay hit $100K MRR and 1M+ users in 12 months. But he'll be the first to tell you he got lucky. And what people don't see is the 4 months he spent locked in his apartment making cringe TikToks to build a waitlist.
@nomadtable no bc how did I not know about this before?? #solotravel #travelbuddy
^like this one^
But that’s not the case for most people. Here’s my full timeline of the failures, work, projects, and businesses over the last 8 years.
2016: Graduated from Ohio State with a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
2017: Moved to Cincinnati - designing medical devices and doing autonomous vehicle research in Miami
2018: Fired from my first job out of college (cried a little)
2019: Moved to San Diego to work at Dexcom - built glucose monitors used by millions.
Me in SD. Seaweed flow went crazy
2020: Covid lock-down, taught myself how to DJ. Ended up playing some of the biggest venues in San Diego. Hosted multiple music events (barely made money)
2021: Started a media business doing live music, landscape, couples, and portrait photography and videography (barely worked).
2022: Promoted to Product Manager at Dexcom.
2023: Tried opening up an Airbnb in Ohio - almost lost $100k. Spent multiple thousands of dollars on a dropshipping course - ended up being a scam.
2023: Read The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray. Hosted monthly cocktail parties and met some of the most interesting people and entrepreneurs in San Diego.
2024: Moved to San Francisco. Started hosting cold plunge meet ups in the bay. Accidentally became Plunge Party. Made $50K in 12 months and became the hottest social wellness club in San Francisco. Shut it down because of growth constraints. (sorta worked)
2025: Built a metabolic health coaching program and consumer health app with no prior experience coding, got millions of views across all social channels.
2026: Shut down the coaching business. Made $15K but I lost $60K (failed).
My story is the second kind. Multiple failures and painful lessons. Look, I'm not glorifying it, failure sucks. And the only regret I have is not failing faster. The more I fail, the more I learn what will work next time, and why.
I hope this encourages you to also try, because you too are probably going to fail a couple times. And that’s ok. But the faster you fail, the quicker you learn. If you're scared to try, that's probably the sign you should.
Shutting down a business and admitting failure isn't easy. But I still believe the best years are ahead. The goal of the game is to keep stepping up to bat. You'll never get a base hit watching from the stands.
Rooting for ya,
Jared
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