Community Spotlight: Perspective on Failure

October 12th, 2020

Community Spotlight: A series highlighting Aspire to Her community members and their experiences early in their careers.

Who we’re featuring this week: Mariah Manzano
Position: Software Engineer at Cisco; CEO & Co-Founder at Opal

You started a company, Opal, while still in college. What would you recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Your day-to-day should be handled as a prioritized list. Who or what are you prioritizing for any given day? Do your priorities align well with your short-term goals? Your long-term goals? If you find yourself interested in starting a community, venture, or project, it does require a shift in priorities and at times, sacrificing other things that were once a part of your life to make time for the new business.

More than anything, I urge you to try. Fail. Pivot. Validate your ideas. The worst thing that can happen is that you need to change your plan of action. But when does life go exactly as planned, ever? We can’t expect businesses to do the same. In fact, your business plan may change drastically within the first year or two. That is OKAY. In fact, change likely means you’re adapting and pivoting according to user or market needs. Embrace change like your business depends on it.

What is your perspective on failure?

I love to fail. Well, not love. But I accept the idea of it; I almost feel numb to failure because I view every criticism or “failure” as an opportunity to learn and try something new. And as long as I’m getting something from the experience, who exactly is failing?

It’s no secret that with new agile methodologies, product teams are urged to “fail fast”. It’s the same with life. Fail fast to determine what’s best for you through trial and error.

Given the nature of our digital world so far, admitting failure can be difficult in the midst of a sea of posts revolving around success. The reality is that failure, struggles, imposter syndrome, and the pressures of always presenting your best, most perfect self to the world are overwhelming and unrealistic to expect of yourself.

Embracing failure, befriending the imposter syndrome, and presenting the most authentic version of yourself are perhaps the most freeing, impressive, and human things you could do