How Not to Fail: 10 essential lessons from bringing 100 startups to market over 20 years

Too many good ideas fail.

My mom died too young of a cancer that my doctor friends say shouldn't have killed her.

Ten years later I started working with a company that might have been able to save her life. But now I know she almost certainly would have ignored them if she'd come across them back then.

It's not that my mom didn't want to live. It's just that, like all of us, she was terrible about knowing what to notice and what to ignore. There's just too much stuff out there.

And this is the fundamental problem for anyone offering anything new. Too many good ideas fail, not because they can't create their new thing but because they can't attract the attention of the people who can put their good idea to use, even if it would help them. Even if it might save their life.

This drives me crazy.

Since 2002 I've helped more than 100 companies and not-for-profits succeed by attracting the attention of the people who can put them to use. A lot of these make people's lives better. Some have become big organizations. A few even save lives. When I can bring attention to worthwhile ideas, it feels to me like the reason why I'm on the planet.

Because smart startups shouldn't fail for stupid reasons.

To date, Jeff Berman has created the original go-to-market strategies and campaigns for more than 100 startups. As far as we know, Jeff is the only marketing professional who studied astrophysics. After realizing what astrophysicists actually do, he left the University of Chicago for an advertising job at Leo Burnett in Chicago. Jeff worked at Ogilvy & Mather in New York and Mullen in Boston before launching Berman Creative in 2002.