I think we need to stop using the word fail for things like this---expressions like "fail fast" and "learning from failure" and "embrace failure" often give peo

I think we need to stop using the word fail for things like this---expressions like "fail fast" and "learning from failure" and "embrace failure" often give people the wrong impression. Instead I prefer to re-calibrate success. If you are doing a startup, or anything else (borrowing Ries' definition here) under extreme uncertainty, your goal can't possibly be to succeed. This could very well be an impossible goal, and you could fail for reasons entirely outside your control and outside your visibility. Instead, you should identify the unknowns where possible (your hypotheses) and set your goal as de-risking these unknowns. For example, your startup idea might be "Uber Eats for umbrellas" where you deliver umbrellas to people at the push of a button. Can you build a successful company around this? Who knows. I certainly wouldn't measure myself on my ability to build a successful company on this. But I might measure myself on my ability to determine whether there is a market for it. I might be successful in determining there isn't a market for it and then decide not to continue any further, and I wouldn't call myself a failure for it. And even if there is a market, then there's a question of whether the economics make sense. Again, your goal now is to determine the answer to this question regardless of the yes/no outcome.