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\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\tThursday 28 May 2026 2:37 pm\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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At SCALE EXPO & SUMMIT<\/a> on 22 April, business journalist Dougal Shaw brought together three entrepreneurs to talk about setbacks and comebacks \u2013 the theme of his new book, Fail Smarter.<\/p>\n Failure is not something most of us talk about at business events. When you\u2019re pitching to investors, winning over customers, or convincing talented people to join your startup, the success narrative is everything. But according to Dougal Shaw, keeping our mouths firmly shut about failure is a problem, and it\u2019s costing British businesses their best chance to scale.<\/p>\n At SCALE\u2019s<\/a> flagship event at the Business Design Centre, Dougal chaired a panel that cut straight through the shiny surface of entrepreneurship to examine what failure really looks like, and what the most resilient founders do with it. Joining him were Steph Hind, co-founder of employee wellbeing benefits platform Heka; Gurinder Dhillon, founder and CEO of electric vehicle leasing company Auto Car; and John Stapleton, serial food entrepreneur and investor, founder of New Covent Garden Soup Company and Little Dish.\u00a0<\/p>\n Four lessons in turning setbacks into breakthroughs1. When everything closes overnight<\/p>\n Steph Hind closed her first investment round the week before Christmas 2019. Six weeks later, Covid hit. Heka\u2019s entire model at the time was built around physical health and wellness experiences (gyms, yoga studios, sports classes) all of which shut down simultaneously.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery gym, every physical location we had on the platform closed,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd literally overnight you had people being like, what are you going to do for us now?\u201d<\/p>\n Steph was 26, recently in her first office, with new staff who had joined on the strength of her conviction. The pressure was acute. <\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve built this business. They want to know the answers to the questions that you don\u2019t know. But if you don\u2019t go in full of conviction, then everybody\u2019s going to be flapping and panicking.<\/p>\n Her response was to reframe the question. Rather than fixating on the worst that could happen, she asked what was the best that could happen if she was willing to take the risk. Heka pivoted to a whole-person health model. The platform now offers around 25,000 experiences, from financial learning to National Trust membership, and is stronger for having been stress-tested at the start.<\/p>\n Setback into breakthrough<\/p>\n When a crisis strips your business model down to nothing, it also removes the constraints of how things have always been done. The pivot you\u2019re forced to make may be better than the one you would have chosen.<\/p>\n 2. Knowing when to quit and start again<\/p>\n Gurinder Dhillon\u2019s first business, a food delivery company called Food Corners, was ahead of its time. \u201cWe built our kitchens, had all the chefs inside, had 50 drivers and amazing sales, but couldn\u2019t find a profit.\u201d After four years, he acknowledged that he was stubbornly pursuing a future for the business that didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n Stubbornness is when all the facts have changed, but you keep plowing on.<\/p>\n He moved into black cabs, building a fleet of 250 vehicles. But when Uber arrived, rather than wait for the tide to turn or fight against the disruptor, he read it as a signal. He sold the black cab business and started again with a single car. \u201cI think the bravest decision ever was to torpedo a really successful business and say you\u2019re going to start again.\u201d Over ten years, he rebuilt to 8,000 vehicles and became Uber\u2019s biggest partner in Europe.<\/p>\n The key, he argued, is the competitive intelligence that only comes from time in the market. \u201cIt\u2019s not timing the market, it\u2019s time in the market. You gain expertise from compound interest and spending time building your knowledge in that area.\u201d That depth of domain expertise is what lets you see disruption coming and make a move before others do.<\/p>\n Setback into breakthrough<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n \t\t\tHow repeat entrepreneur relief could strengthen the UK start-up ecosystem<\/a><\/p>\n Domain expertise earned through failure is a competitive moat. The longer you\u2019ve been in an industry, the earlier you\u2019ll see the next wave \u2014 and the more credibly you can ride it.<\/p>\n 3. The s**t sandwich<\/p>\n John Stapleton\u2019s business card lists three companies: New Covent Garden Soup Company (success), Glencoe Foods (failure), Little Dish (success). He calls it the s**t sandwich.<\/p>\n It represents the success, the failure, and then, happily, the success afterwards.<\/p>\n After selling New Covent Garden in 1997, John took the model to America with total confidence.\u201cI became a bit of an arrogant s**t at that stage because I thought I had it figured out.\u201d He hadn\u2019t. Different consumer habits, a fragmented distribution network, a prolonged distraction from an acquisition approach, and it all unravelled. \u201cIt came crashing around my ears and it was a horrible experience.\u201d<\/p>\n What followed was a long period of introspection. His mind, he said, played tricks on him.<\/p>\n I began to think maybe New Covent Garden was a success despite me, rather than because of me<\/p>\n But out of that process came the clarity that drove Little Dish.<\/p>\n The major reason why Little Dish was a success was because the US business was a failure<\/p>\n Setback into breakthrough<\/p>\n Success is a poor teacher because you can never isolate what made it work. Failure is precise. It shows you exactly what you missed and if you\u2019re honest about it, that knowledge compounds into your next attempt.<\/p>\n 4. How investors view failure<\/p>\n When the conversation turned to how investors respond to founders who\u2019ve failed, the panelists were in agreement: the best investors aren\u2019t put off by failure, but they probe it carefully. They want to understand what you learned, how you behaved when things went wrong, and whether the people around you were treated with integrity. \u201cWere people left in debt and out of pocket, or did you manage to settle up? If you can fail well, and that helps you move on,\u201d John noted.<\/p>\n Setback into breakthrough<\/p>\n Storytelling is an underrated skill in the context of failure. As a founder, you need to construct a narrative around the setback you\u2019ve experienced, so that it demonstrates growth. Smart investors are backing a person\u2019s evolution, not just their idea.<\/p>\n Join us for Fail Smarter on 2 June<\/p>\n Dougal Shaw will be bringing the themes of Fail Smarter to a dedicated SCALE Session on 2 June, with a special guest entrepreneur featured in the book. Join us at the SCALE Hub to unpack what it really takes to build resilience into your business and why the founders who\u2019ve fallen hardest often scale the fastest. Hear directly from an author who has spent years interviewing entrepreneurs about their toughest moments, and how they used them to fuel their scaleup journey.<\/p>\n