Letting your mistakes inform your future decisions is key to running a business, according to Richard Moross, founder and CEO of online print company MOO.com.
Speaking to a room full of budding entrepreneurs and businesspeople at City University’s Cass Business School yesterday evening, Moross said he could not even recount all the mistakes he made when setting up MOO.com.
However, what makes the innovative company so successful is its ability to turn each mistake into something positive.
“The taste of failure is incredibly motivating in order to succeed in business. But the thing is, you will learn by falling down, each mistake will inform a future good decision,” Moross told Alex Ritson, a former BBC reporter who chaired the event entitled "Is it possible to revolutionise a 500-year-old industry? Meet Moo.com", organised in collaboration with Startup Grind London.
Moross, a 36-year-old Londoner, spoke of how his company ended up offering products in special ‘Royal wedding’ packaging after a company employ forgot to order their traditional packaging boxes and all they had was basic white packages. As this incident happened at the time of Prince William’s marriage to Kate Middleton, the company managed to promote it as packaging specifically for the ‘Royal wedding’, while adding a humorous note in the small print: ‘This is not because Steve forgot to order the correct packaging”.
“The best about any mistake is that any mistake can be turned into a victory,” Moross told an audience laughing at the anecdote.
Speaking to a room full of budding entrepreneurs and businesspeople at City University’s Cass Business School yesterday evening, Moross said he could not even recount all the mistakes he made when setting up MOO.com.
However, what makes the innovative company so successful is its ability to turn each mistake into something positive.
“The taste of failure is incredibly motivating in order to succeed in business. But the thing is, you will learn by falling down, each mistake will inform a future good decision,” Moross told Alex Ritson, a former BBC reporter who chaired the event entitled "Is it possible to revolutionise a 500-year-old industry? Meet Moo.com", organised in collaboration with Startup Grind London.
Moross, a 36-year-old Londoner, spoke of how his company ended up offering products in special ‘Royal wedding’ packaging after a company employ forgot to order their traditional packaging boxes and all they had was basic white packages. As this incident happened at the time of Prince William’s marriage to Kate Middleton, the company managed to promote it as packaging specifically for the ‘Royal wedding’, while adding a humorous note in the small print: ‘This is not because Steve forgot to order the correct packaging”.
“The best about any mistake is that any mistake can be turned into a victory,” Moross told an audience laughing at the anecdote.
Before becoming Moo’s founder, Moross was a senior strategist at Imagination, the world’s largest independent design company,
He founded MOO.com in 2004 - he revealed yesterday that he initially gave it the name ‘Pleasure Cards’ - and it began life as a social networking site allowing people to send details to one another on real business cards.
As this did not take off as Moross had wanted, the focus turned just to producing high-quality, premium, professionally designed business cards and other related products, abandoning the social network idea.
Starting out with just 3 employees, MOO.com now has more than 250, with offices in London and the US. Moo, which was ranked in the top 10 UK start-up companies by the Guardian Newspaper and has won three Webby awards (the web’s Oscars), prints millions of cards a month and has served hundreds of thousands of customers in over 180 countries, while 70 per cent of its revenues are non-UK.
"It's a real challenge running a business with people across different timezones," said Moross.
At times, he seemed almost to be still pinching himself at times with his company’s success in just 10 years, in a sector that Moross called extremely boring.
“It is is one of the most boring categories to work in really. If you think about it, it's just a rectangular piece of paper, but there is so much value in it. It is a highly boring product that means a lot - or is very important and that's why we've had so much success,” he said.
He founded MOO.com in 2004 - he revealed yesterday that he initially gave it the name ‘Pleasure Cards’ - and it began life as a social networking site allowing people to send details to one another on real business cards.
As this did not take off as Moross had wanted, the focus turned just to producing high-quality, premium, professionally designed business cards and other related products, abandoning the social network idea.
Starting out with just 3 employees, MOO.com now has more than 250, with offices in London and the US. Moo, which was ranked in the top 10 UK start-up companies by the Guardian Newspaper and has won three Webby awards (the web’s Oscars), prints millions of cards a month and has served hundreds of thousands of customers in over 180 countries, while 70 per cent of its revenues are non-UK.
"It's a real challenge running a business with people across different timezones," said Moross.
At times, he seemed almost to be still pinching himself at times with his company’s success in just 10 years, in a sector that Moross called extremely boring.
“It is is one of the most boring categories to work in really. If you think about it, it's just a rectangular piece of paper, but there is so much value in it. It is a highly boring product that means a lot - or is very important and that's why we've had so much success,” he said.