Friday the 13th: What’s an “unlucky” moment that turned into a win?

Question

Superstitions aside, what’s one ‘unlucky’ moment in your startup or tech journey that actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise?

I am curious to hear your stories

Nicolas Garcin · Accepted Answer

In the 1st company I founded, a D2C online custom framing brand, my head of production suddenly quit. So, my co-founder and I had to handle the production ourselves while we were searching for a new person.

Being hands-on, we optimized numerous processes and automated tasks, reducing the time to produce and ship a custom frame by x3.

We did lose time on other matters, but overall, it was a worthwhile investment.

Upendra Kumar · Answer

I'm not convinced Sora will live up to the hype. There's a lot of excitement, but the risks of abuse and misinformation are hard to ignore.

Charlotte Elise Sinclair · Answer

Dude same! I once missed a flight due to traffic and was bummed. But at the airport bar I met an amazing mentor who gave me great business advice that 10x'd my revenue that year. Missing that flight was the best 'bad luck' ever. The universe works in wild ways 🙌 Gotta find the silver lining in those unlucky moments.

Answer

Oh man, I had an 'unlucky' web server crash a few years back that ended up being a blessing in disguise. Lost the whole codebase because of a failed backup. Totally devastating at first. But it pushed me to finally learn git, implement a CI/CD pipeline, and start using infrastructure as code for more reliable deployments. That initial bad luck led to a way more robust and efficient setup in the long run. Funny how setbacks can sometimes be the kick in the pants we need to level up.

Answer

Missed a big opportunity, but it led me to a better idea I had not considerd funny how things work out sometimes

Christopher Anderson · Answer

Similar thing happened to me! My external hard drive with all my design files crashed right before a big client presentation. I panicked at first, thinking I'd have to redo days of work. But it pushed me to finally set up automatic cloud syncing for all my projects. Now everything is always backed up and I can access my files from any device. That 'unlucky' drive failure was a blessing in disguise that made me a more efficient and resilient designer in the long run. Funny how setbacks can be the kick in the pants we need to level up our systems!

Answer

I lost a key team member before a deadline, but it forced us to streamline, and i ended up ahead of schedule.

Nancy Wright · Answer

I once had a stroke of bad luck that turned into a win. My laptop with all my business files died suddenly due to a hardware failure. I had no recent backups. At first I was devastated, thinking I lost months of work. But it forced me to rethink my scattered file system. I ended up moving everything important to the cloud, automating daily backups, and streamlining my folder structure as I rebuilt my files. That initial 'unlucky' event drastically improved my productivity and peace of mind going forward. Sometimes setbacks are catalysts for positive change.

Friday the 13th: What’s an “unlucky” moment that turned into a win?

Replies