Author: Luis Marriott (Purpose Launchpad Mentor)

Some time ago, when the words entrepreneurship and innovation were not so fashionable, at least in my country, I decided to start a business. It was a difficult decision to leave the comfort zone of working in a large corporation with a fixed income, but there was something in me that wouldn’t let me sleep and told me I had to do it.

It took me a short time to identify a business opportunity, which I believed was going to be a success, raise some start-up capital and get started. Short story short, a few months later I was closing the business. These are some of the lessons learned from my story that I would like to share.

After a while, and thanks to my connection with the entrepreneurial ecosystem, I understood what had happened. I made the typical mistakes of an entrepreneur: not having a defined business model, a value proposition not focused on the customer and managing the business as if it were a consolidated company, with a limited budget. Which gave me a reality check, but more importantly I learned.

As I learned more innovation methodologies, I understood that entrepreneurship is not an easy thing, even sometimes very complicated and ambiguous, it seems that you go without a clear path. All methodologies, such as design thinking, lean startup, customer development and many more, seemed to be different and at the same time overlapping paths. At that moment I learned another lesson, to undertake, methodologies are not important, but the mindset, this is the one that will allow you to accept failure, take it as a learning process and restart.

The third thing I learned was that a defined Massive, personal and business Transformational Purpose gives you a north and recharges you with energy every day. The success of your initiative is defined by whether you are achieving the purpose you have defined for yourself and not by the success or failure you may have. That North Star will help you make the best decisions, as Francisco Palao, founder of Purpose Alliance and creator of the Purpose Launchpad (PL) meta-methodology, rightly says.

In Purpose Launchpad I found the connection between all the learning I have had, it is more than a methodology, it is a process of accelerated evolution of people and although it connects many tools of innovation and entrepreneurship in a clear and iterative path, the great result I have obtained with the teams that have applied it and in my own case, is a change of mindset. If I had had the opportunity to use Purpose Launchpad in my story, I’m sure the outcome would have been different, but with the same lessons learned and more.

Whenever I have the opportunity to mentor an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, or give them advice, I remember the Purpose Launchpad principles and we get the best results. With my purpose being “An Extraordinarily Innovative World,” every time I use Purpose Launchpad I feel like I’m on the right track.