Success needs no explanation and Failures have no excuses

I was going through the blog by Chris Anderson the author of the long tail in that blog he was commenting on the recent crash of one of the new comer Newspaper companies Nyhedsavisen to the iceland market owned by Skype Investor Morten Lund.

What previously was a perfectly planned attempt at out competiting all other newspaper companies in Iceland through an extreme price war strategy exploded in the face. A black swan (unknown unknown) was not accounted for. Morten Lund was blinded sided. Who would have known that the economic recession would hit the world end of 2008, thus affecting advertising revenue of all newspaper companies and causing the Nyhedsavisen to scrap bottom in terms of its cash flow.

What followed thereafter was a whole series of attempts by Morten Lund to dissolve the company in exchange for enough funds to pay off his debtors and employees. He will be down for a while I think before he comes back up into the radar again.

This scenario does sound familiar. After having read the book that cousin Johson recommended me, I seem to see Black Swans everywhere and also the Grey Swans. More than that I have experienced first hand how a business model when not structured properly to mitigate the risk of potential negative black swans could blow up in your face in a very terrible way.

Lesson learned: Always be extremely pessimistic when trashing out a business model. Always think of the worst case scenario that could happen. Once done, with your very best effort mitigate your risk and expose yourself to as much positive Black Swans as possible. Thereafter go with faith and have God for guidance.