It's Not Losing. It's Learning.

Written by

Ladd Martin

Published on

November 7, 2025

As May 2024 came to a close we were ramping at a 10x growth rate. As May 2025 came to a close, we were failing to raise a series B. We laid off friends & closed down our office. We started looking for acquirers, and jobs.

In October, 2 days before shutting down the product, we got a bid. One that would help the product scale faster and help more people than we ever could on our own. It felt like we were on the right path, but that didn't make going through it any easier.

This is not a humble brag. This is the agonizing reality of failure in venture, and in life. It’s hard.

Failure has come in many shapes and sizes over my career and life, and it’s taken me a long time to shift from anger to gratitude, to realize the self-help platitudes are real. We really do learn more from our trials than our triumphs.

The hard work for me started two years ago, when I left HP Inc. after a nearly 20 year relationship with the brand and company—as a client, and as an employer—it wasn’t turning out the way I had planned. It was a dead-end, and I crashed into it at full speed.

Two things saw me through.

First, was a gratitude practice. My mother sent me a self-help book and I went all-in. Every day, I woke up and wrote a gratitude journal. Every night I gripped a crystal and muttered a mantra. It was bizarre, but it worked. I got my mind right and turned my anger into action.

Second, I opened myself to friends and colleagues like I never had before. I was humble, I was honest, and I learned that I was most certainly not alone. I drank a lot of coffee. Took a lot of walks. Made a lot of calls. Jay-Z was right, your network truly is your net worth.

Through all this I found purpose, direction, and clarity. Now, I help build companies and grow products that make an impact for people and the planet. The work and the worth go hand in hand.