Name: Insights: The Best Way to View a Startup Failure
Uploaded: 2020-01-15
Duration: 1 min 38 s
Description: ClassPass CEO Payal Kadakia explains the company's much-needed change. (December 2015)

[MUSIC PLAYING] Before you launched in this current iteration, you launched a different kind of model that didn't work so well. But what was that? And why didn't it work? Yeah, I started this company because I was looking for a ballet class. I went onto the internet. I was completely lost in terms of which studio to go to. I had 15 different tabs open. And that's when I realized that there needed to be a directory for all these classes. So the initial concept was very similar to Open Tables, ZocDoc, Seamless Web. Lets put all the classes in one place. And that was great. I think it was informative. But we didn't have the motivating criteria of making it feel accessible and the discovery that people wanted to. And as we went and moved over to a membership, it became more motivating. And it became more frictionless to get to these studios. And that's when we started seeing the engagement number and our number of reservations skyrocket. So what advice would you give to another entrepreneur who launched one way and realized it's not working the way they thought and need to pivot? What did you learn from that? You can't get stuck. When you feel like something's not working, trust your gut. And don't get sort of lost in saying, well, we spent money doing it. Let's not move. I think we were very OK with being like, this isn't working. We tried a little bit. And we very quickly knew it wasn't going to work. We just went in a different direction. And we weren't afraid of failing. And we actually liked failure because it gave us a data point to say, that's not working. Let's go in the right direction to actually achieve our mission. I also think having a mission from your core is so important. And knowing that you want to achieve that also motivates your team to constantly strive toward saying, you know what, we're going to keep going until we get there. And it feels so great once you finally are able to realize your mission. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Insights: The Best Way to View a Startup Failure

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ClassPass CEO explains the company's much-needed change.

The Best Way to View a Startup Failure

ClassPass CEO Payal Kadakia explains the company's much-needed change. (December 2015)

before you launch in this current iteration, you launched a different kind of model that didn't work so well. But what was that? Why didn't it work? Yeah, you know, I started this company because I was looking for a ballet class. I went onto the Internet. I was completely lost in terms of which studio to Goto. I had 15 different tabs open, and that's when I realized that there needed to be a directory for all these classes. So the initial concept was very similar. Open Table Doc, Doc scene with Webb. Let's put all the classes in one place, and that was great. I think it was informative, but we didn't have the motivating criteria of making it feel accessible in the discovery that people wanted to. And as we went and moved over to a membership, it became a motivating, and it became more frictionless to get to the studios. And that's when we started seeing the engagement number and our number of reservations skyrocket. What advice would you give to another entrepreneur who launched one way and realize it's not working the way they thought and need to pivot? What did you learn from that? you know you can't get stuck right when you feel like something's not working, trust your gut and don't get sort of lost and saying, Well, we spent money doing it. Let's not move. I think we were very okay with being like This isn't working. We tried a little bit when we very quickly knew it wasn't going to work. We just went a different direction and we had We weren't afraid of failing, and we actually liked failure because it gave us a data point. Say, That's not working. Let's go in the right direction, toe actually achieve our mission. I also think like having a mission from your core so important, and knowing that you want to achieve that also motivates your team to constantly strive toward thing. You know what, we're gonna keep going until we get there and it feels overly once you finally are able to realize your mission