Business failure videos offer so much learning and interesting discussion for a high school business class. The free printable Biz Bust Bingo keeps students really engaged, too.
Why make an activity out of business failure for your students?
Well, because seeing how others have failed can teach us valuable lessons.
Such as:
- Specific things to avoid doing ourselves
- That there is another side to failure, and you will get through it
- That people learn valuable lessons when they fail at something
- That failing as an entrepreneur is pretty “normal”, and often has to happen in order to learn enough to start up a successful business
Check out these business failure videos below, and the two activities that go along with them.
Business Fail Videos to Watch with Students
I watched a ton of business failure videos – learning so much along the way – and handpicked a playlist of them.
Videos are between 4 minutes and 17 minutes long, FYI.
Also, it was difficult finding videos free from “colorful” language – just know that I’ve watched each one to the end to do my best and only choose videos with only appropriate language. I did make a note on ONE video below that snuck in a word.
1. My Clothing Brand Failed and Here's What I Learned (8:48 minutes)
This guy decided that to earn thousands of dollars the easy way, he would design clothes and sell them (he was 17 at the time).
He had trouble figuring out where to source the clothes but finally worked with someone from China. His friends helped with taking photos, and he hyped everything on Instagram.
At the end of his first launch day, he had sold about half of his items – and he broke even.
Unfortunately, the second “drop” didn’t go well. The supplier baited and switched him by changing sizes, giving him low quality, etc.
He had to sell the products though, or else he’d sink.
Well…it didn’t go well.
2. What I Learned from My Failed Coffee Shop (12:27 minutes)
This is such a great video about a man who opened a coffee shop and quickly learned that even when people SAY they want something over and over again…they might not actually be ready to pay for it.
In this case, the location of this business was all wrong. And the little town that they opened in just wasn’t enough to support their revenue needs.
Also, being in a country space, he found that running ads on social media was not effective in driving traffic to his shop.
Just a treasure trove of information.
3. Why My 3D Printing Business Failed, and How to Prevent it for Yours (12:34 minutes)
Here’s a fantastic rundown of things that can cause a young person’s business to fail, like:
- expenses of creating and shipping a physical product when you sell it on another platform
- how sometimes you create something that others aren’t willing to pay for (even though it’s really cool)
- intellectual property issues
- etc.
Some really smart advice and experience here, with context I think teens will enjoy/relate with.
4. My Business Failed…Here’s What I Learned (14:17 minutes)
I really like this man’s story because it’s not that long, and it’s relatable to the types of businesses that teens have likely:
- come in contact with (reselling of items on the internet + furniture flipping), and
- have thought about doing themselves
Also, he didn’t give up. He pivoted, which is HUGE when you’re starting your own business.
5. My Startup Business Failed And I Lost Everything (9:21 minutes)
This man did well in his late teens to mid-20s in his business, but it didn’t last. He’s had 5 years to think over the lessons he learned, and this is the video of that.
He started up a video streaming platform of Nollywood films, and his goal was to make a Netflix-type product.
Unfortunately, he came up with a bunch of issues, such as the people who they were licensing with to have their content on his video streaming service were going behind his back and also uploading the content to YouTube. That lost exclusivity/a reason to pay for his service.
The overhead costs just overwhelmed him. Within one year, he ran out of cash – and he had thrown in all of the money that he had made on his other two successes. He lived on his savings, and lived OUT his savings. He also had to sell just about everything.
Hint: there is one cuss word in this, the H-word, at around the 6:00 minute mark.
6. Why I Closed My Food Truck (9:23 minutes)
Here’s an honest video to his customers, detailing what exactly happened that caused him to close his food truck down.
Basically, the price of proteins was unsustainable with his current prices, and he felt he couldn’t raise them. Also, he made a menu that had too many items on it for the space he was in and it was too complicated. Several other issues are going on, too.
7. My Business Failed: What’s Next (11:50 minutes)
This woman had a car rental business, and it failed.
It sounds like a bunch of her cars were in accidents, and she only received one insurance payout for one car.
Did not demand payment on time. And she talks about how she should’ve quit sooner. She was in survival mode for too long and was making bad decisions.
8. My Business Failed in 21 Months…Here's What I Learned (17:18 minutes)
Here’s a 21-year-old who had four failed businesses in two years.
She had an e-commerce store when she was 9 years old. She imported keychains from one place and then sold them at a profit on places like eBay and Amazon. This one failed just because she was so young and just didn’t have focus (completely understandable!).
One was a marketing content agency. The issue was that she didn’t know how to produce value that the client could get paid for, so the clients couldn’t pay for them…and it failed.
She then created an app with a curriculum on it. She even got 5,000 users in just one day! Unfortunately, she had no idea how to make money off of it.
Her last business failure was four years ago – a food subscription box called Eat Like. Her goal was to make $100,000 this year. Brands gave them products for free in exchange for market research. Brands were sending them fewer products, so they had to buy their own products, and then they started losing $10 per every box they sold.
I love how she talks about pivoting. And, she talks about her next/current business she’s starting up!
9. My App Failed – My Brutal 6 Months Building a Startup (11:18 minutes)
This guy built, from scratch, a productivity app with his high school friend.
They quickly learned some costly lessons (in that they made $0 in 7 months of a lot of work).
Such as, how important market research from actual potential customers is, how it’s important to quickly fail in the market instead of take a long time to get a product out and then fail, creating an app that was way too complicated, and lots more.
Usage of the free app dropped off big time.
He gives a great summary at the end of what he’d do differently next time.
10. Selling T-shirts **DID NOT**Work For Me: Failed Online Business + My Youtube Journey (17:12 minutes)
Here’s a woman who set up her business in the right way from the start legally, but then failed within 1 year for several other issues.
She had a tee-shirt-selling business, and she experienced:
- Funding everything herself, including skipping a car payment to pay for equipment
- Being a one-woman show
- Quit her job with no systems in place
- Had no backup income plans or emergency fund for seasonal dips in income
- Etc.
11. My Guitar Amp Business FAILED. Here’s What I Learned. (9:35 minutes)
Danny was passionate about guitars and learning how they worked. He decided to start his own business making and selling his own amps.
He didn’t realize that his enjoyment of the guitar would be hampered by being in the business, nor did he understand all the other parts of a company that he’d have to learn in order to keep his business open.
In the end, he decided that he’d rather spend his time playing the guitar and working at something else than making guitar accessories.
12. My Start-up Failed In 22 Months – Here's What I Learnt (4:48 minutes)
Fastbee is a startup that would deliver food from restaurants/vendors into lockers, where people could then open and pick it up (convenient to them).
The founders received angel investing and everything…but things didn’t work out.
Some of the issues included:
- Vending Machine malfunctions (and repair took several hours…while the food got cold)
- Unreliable delivery staff
- Trouble finding enough locations to open new vending machines
- Fulfilling requirements set by the angel investors
13. Why My Business FAILED. What I learned. (9:43 minutes)
Here’s a guy who originally started a business creating 4 styles of chicken coops/greenhouses for a living.
He talks about not having any automation or a repeatable way to create products, which is very inefficient.
He also had cash/capital issues, and his supplies were too high in cost because he wasn’t buying them in bulk (he was paying the same cost as someone going to Lowe’s would).
Business Class Activity: How to Play Biz Bust Bingo
Alright – ready for the fun activity?
I created 30 free printable bingo cards. Each space has a reason why a particular business failed. The reasons are both universal ones – they can apply to any number of business failures – and they’re specific to the videos from above.
Reasons for failures:
- Increased competition – other people started doing the same thing, and it was harder to stand out
- Supplies cost too much now to make a profit
- The labor/time was too much, so they only make minimum wage/hour
- Not enough people in the market to sustain the business
- Not enough “regulars”
- Advertising on social media doesn’t work for the location/type of customer
- Buying too high quality of ingredients in the beginning, and not being able to sustain that cost
- Launching at the wrong time of year to get enough momentum before money runs out
- Heating/utilities bills are way out of range
- Cost of food supplies keeps going up, up, and up
- Too big menu size
- Trying to please everybody
- Bought supplies too high, and now the market price is much lower
- Did not do adequate research into the market – took someone’s word for it
- Not able to monetize the audience you’ve built
- Customers are not adopting a new platform, new service, or new app because the problem they want to be solved is not painful enough for the learning curve
Decide when you’ll show a business failure video, and which ones you want to.
Hand out these bingo cards, and instruct your students to mark each space when the business owner shares that is the reason why their business failed.
Hint: many of these videos hit upon more than one reason, so they can mark off more than one space per video.
You might want to go over what each reason means, to make sure you’ve covered the material already, or that my language lines up with the phrase your students have learned about.
I hope this business class activity opens up some really interesting discussions among your students and keeps them very engaged with the activity. They can learn so much from other business owners’ experiences.
Amanda L. Grossman
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