Anticipate Failure: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Navigating Uncertainty, Avoiding Disaster, and Building a Successful Business

Quibi was going to put short, premium-quality videos in the hands of millions of content-hungry mobile consumers around the globe. The Apple Newton combined cool with indispensable in a way that was expected to spark a new mobile device market that was much bigger than the personal computing market. The $2,500 Tata Nano automobile was touted as a major gamechanger for India and the millions of aspiring middle-class customers who would surely buy one. The Segway personal transporter was introduced with fanfare as a marvel of technology that was poised to change urban transportation.

Each one of these products was to set the world on fire—disrupting markets and changing our lives forever.

Until they didn’t.

In his groundbreaking book, Anticipate Failure, Lak Ananth—CEO of global venture capital firm Next47—describes the most common patterns of failure in innovation. He starts with the premise that building a business based on innovation is a perilous endeavor, and failures big and small are always around the corner. Ananth then dives into instances of failures, guiding the reader to understand root causes. Finally, he provides readers with insights and coaching that will enable them not just to avoid failure, but to anticipate it and then get through it on the way to success.

 

Anticipate Failure contains a riveting mix of stories of high-profile failures in innovation as well as many new stories that will be found nowhere else. In addition, Ananth has interviewed some of today’s most successful founders and executives for the book, including Filip Kaliszan, CEO of Verkada; Gokul Rajaram, on the DoorDash executive team, Dr. Roland Busch, CEO of Siemens; James Joaquin, Managing Director of Obvious Ventures, Eran Ben-Shushan, CEO of Bizzabo; Andre Hartung, President of Diagnostic Imaging at Siemens Healthineers; Li Pu, President of Segway Robotics; and many others.

 

Anticipate Failure is not a “do-these-things-and-you-will-succeed” prescriptive kind of business book. Instead, it is a coach and trusted companion that will help any business founder, executive, and manager get through some of the most difficult challenges they will face when they embark on innovation and building a new business. Read it, then put the lessons you learn to work in your own business.

LAK ANANTH is the Global Managing Partner of N47, a $2 billion+ venture firm. A former dot-com-era engineer, he has backed category-defining companies including Verkada, Tractian, and VAST Data, and works daily with founders building AI-native companies. His first book, Anticipate Failure, was named one of Soundview’s best business books of 2022. He lives in Silicon Valley.