Actually, failure is a good thing

Wil Yeung is still standing. 

You wouldn’t know it from the popular YouTube chef’s successful run over the past few years, but Wil is no stranger to failure. He spent a decade living on “survival money” while one idea after another failed to gain traction.

Another intrepid founder counts himself lucky that his business is thriving. Bare Performance Nutrition CEO Nick Bare says he almost lost his business several times. But luck has nothing to do with it.

It’s critical to note that 23%* of U.S. entrepreneurs already have one failed business under their belt. Globally, this number rises to 40 percent. Failure, it seems, isn’t an ending. For many, it’s a necessary step on the journey to success.

Wil and Nick know this road all too well. These entrepreneurs both took failure in stride. Undeterred, they reframed their setbacks as stepping stones to better versions of themselves—and their businesses.

Failing forward “with absolute confidence”

“Lay ho ma,” says Wil Yeung at the top of an episode. “It’s Cantonese for ‘How’s it going?’” This familiar greeting kicks off every expertly shot video on his YouTube cooking channel, Yeung Man Cooking. It’s immediately clear: You’re watching a pro.

Still, Wil himself is dubious on this point. “I’m just a regular guy,” he insists. Forget his 1.4 million subscribers. Forget that in 2024 he published his fourth book. Forget that he’s built an empire around teaching people how to cook plant-based food. 

“I don't think I ever really feel like I've made it,” Wil says. “I'm still maybe 300 miles into a thousand mile journey.”

To understand Wil’s reluctance, we need to rewind. Yeung Man Cooking isn’t his inaugural venture. In fact, he spent more than a decade chasing independence through a number of businesses—from dropshipping violins to developing his own coconut milk product. “It’s not my first rodeo,” he says.

As he builds his current brand, Wil doesn’t forget the struggle it took to get here. He recalls using his bicycle to make deliveries. He remembers forgoing a salary for himself to pay the staff at his music school.

Despite setback after setback, the entrepreneurial drive had a chokehold on Wil. But even his most successful experiment yet had a slow start. 

“If you can take something away that's transferable, it isn’t really a failure.”

Wil Yeung

Yeung Man Cooking was bringing in less than $100 a month when Wil decided to treat it like a serious production. He committed himself to producing two episodes per week. “I had no time to do anything else. It was super tiring. But I was just like, ‘This is the regimen. Let's stick to it.’ If I don't, the experiment is flawed.” And stick to it he did.

Gaining enough traction to bring in a comfortable income still took years of hustle, he says. 

So what kept Wil forging ahead? The drive to build something meaningful, the thrill of the experiment, the desire to make an impact. Entrepreneurs are just wired this way.

So far Wil has no regrets, not even about the least successful of his experiments. Don’t even mention the F word. “If you can take something away that's transferable, it isn’t really a failure,” he says. He often draws from his mistakes and the transferable skills he gained along the way. 

For Wil, regret is a more powerful motivator than potential failure.

“What I fear most is the unfulfilled potential, the thought of getting to the end of your life and being like, ‘Man, I wish I’d tried that,’” he says.

Nick Bare goes one more

Mid marathon, Nick Bare decided to quit. He turned off the path and began his walk home. Along the way, he stopped. “I started thinking if I quit on this run, what else do I quit? What does it say about my character?” he says. 

Nick returned to the marathon and not only finished it but ran an additional mile. He scrawled a reminder of the moment on the brim of his cap and posted it to Instagram. From there, Nick’s “Go one more” movement caught like fire. “I get tagged in photos every day of someone getting a ‘Go one more’ tattoo,” he says. “There have been thousands of people.”

He didn’t know it at the time, but this event would also inspire a philosophy that would guide him in life and business. 

In 2012, Nick founded a fitness supplement company from his college apartment. He took advantage of a military loan program to fund his fledgling business—while many of his fellow recruits used the money for cars and trips.

After college, Nick officially joined the army. “I dedicated all of my time outside my job in the military to building the business, building the brand.” 

Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) has since exploded into a $40+ million brand with Nick at the helm. But the road to get here wasn’t always smooth. At several intervals in the past 12 years, Nick says he almost lost the business. 

“I'm constantly battling mistakes and failures but it's just part of the process. It's part of the journey. Most things aren't the end of the world.”

Nick Bare

Take 2017. It wasn’t that sales were slow or the brand couldn’t acquire customers. In fact, BPN was experiencing healthy growth that year. Nick and his team responded to the demand. “We signed our first warehouse lease, which we could barely afford,” he says. As sales ramped up even more, Nick was forced to stack production orders, tying up all the brand’s cash flow in inventory. 

“We had $3,000 in our account,” says Nick. “Rent was due the next week and I was like, there's no way we're going to make it.” 

The team recovered with a little creative thinking: a flash sale that carried them through the rest of the month.

It wouldn’t be the last time Nick would have a close call. There was also the time he misplaced $250,000. Or when he had to ask his brother Preston for money.

“I'm constantly battling mistakes and failures but it's just part of the process. It's part of the journey,” Nick says. 

Ultimately, Nick’s approach to running his business stems from that fateful marathon, and it has helped BPN overcome its shakiest moments. One more mile, one more dollar, one more day. 

In 2025, BPN will be expanding into a new market, bringing its supplements to the UK using Managed Markets. And Nick’s “Go one more” mantra is now the inspiration for his upcoming first book. 

Failure is an option

At the end of every video on his channel, Wil assures his audience they can cook “with absolute confidence.” It’s his own effortless confidence that sells it, hard earned by years of perfecting his recipe for business.

For Nick, failure has become fodder for content. On YouTube, he shares mistakes he’s made as a father, an athlete, a business owner. “Being relatable and personable and sharing these vulnerabilities, it creates a connection,” he says. This authenticity has been critical to forming a fanbase of loyal customers.

What’s clear from stories like Wil’s and Nick’s, is that failure can be a powerful force. It’s a badge to wear proudly as an entrepreneur. 

Although the road is paved with pitfalls, history tells us entrepreneurs die hard.

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*Shopify partnered with Gallup and Censuswide to conduct separate, related surveys inside and outside the U.S., respectively.

Results for the Gallup entrepreneur poll are based on responses from a survey of 46,993 U.S. adults (18+ years old) conducted online May 1-14, 2024. All participants are members of Gallup’s probability-based, nationally representative panel. 

Results for the Censuswide data based on responses from two online samples; among 14,047 general consumers (including 1,767 business owners) and 1,428 business owners conducted May 8-13, 2024. Participants are all adults in the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.