Facebook is shutting down its standalone gaming app. Yes, as we praise these entrepreneurs as being visionaries, we need to understand that their strike rates are not 100%. From Jeff Bezos (Amazon Fire) to Mark Zuckerberg to Aliko Dangote, there are many misses even as they build their empires.
I was doing an internship in Port Harcourt when Dangote launched Liberty Merchant Bank. The company I was doing it sent me as a representative to the Presidential Hotel, PHC the day it was launched. Within years, that bank failed, just as Dangote Capital failed.
Many years later, Dangote joked with Oba Otudeko, saying “I tried banking but was not as lucky as Oba Otudeko”; I was in the same place with them and I documented that conversation here.
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Here is the summary: when we praise innovators as being visionaries, it does not mean that they do not have setbacks. The difference is that they keep fighting ,and sooner rather than later, they come up with what markets want. Indeed, success is not an absence of failure, because success includes failure as part of its components!
Twitch is the category-king and Facebook Gaming has no chance – and the market has validated that, just as Google Plus failed because Facebook was better. Never be intimidated by the #big; the best will always win.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is shuttering its Facebook Gaming app launched two years ago, due to its failure to catch up in an industry dominated by Twitch.
The game, which lets users watch and play video games on-demand, will no longer work or be available to download starting on October 28th, 2022, Facebook said in a notice sent to users.
“We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you for everything that you’ve done to build a thriving community for gamers and fans since this app first launched,” the company said in an update on the Facebook Gaming app.
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The problem with this kind of framing is that you need to first achieve market validation before you start including failures as part of success stories. You cannot include failures as part of failure stories, nobody listens to such.
Mark, Jeff or Aliko can fail as much as they want, but you can look at Facebook, Amazon or Dangote Cement, and their failure ‘sins’ will be forgiven. What will that aspiring innovator or visionary enthusiast be telling us? He/she simply needs to bend down and keep going until something worthwhile happens, so that there can be triumphant stories.
This world is not a very nice place, and nobody is here to pity you just because you have failed many times, just succeed once, and all of us will run with your story.
As always, don’t complain, and never explain.
Excellent response. All three entrepreneurs can fail and fail at this point because their wins can more than cover up their failures. I really do think that failure makes you know what you are good at and what you can’t do which helps to narrow your focus on you area of expertise.
@Femi: if I remember correctly, Dangote’s Liberty Merchant Bank and Dangote Capital failed long before his major wins. In fact, his foray into the refinery which was an opportunity laced with vision, came about when his quest to acquire the NNPCs refinery by his Blue Star owned jointly with Femi Otedola. That’s is the sustaining spirit of a visionary entrepreneur. Never Say Die attitude