A Lesson About Failure From MrBeast You Need to Know
Entrepreneur Office Hours - Issue #272
I was lucky enough to have the president of MrBeast’s production company in my class, and he said something about Jimmy (Jimmy Donaldson — a.k.a. MrBeast himself), that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.
He said: “Whenever people talk about Jimmy, they talk about how, in the past six years, he’s blown up. They describe it like it’s been some rocket ship of success. But what nobody talks about is how Jimmy spent six years before that all that producing hundreds of videos nobody ever watched.”
When you stop to think about the statement — and I mean really think about it — the point being made here is almost terrifying. SIX YEARS! That’s a looooooong time to be failing... especially when you’re actually going through it. Simply put, MrBeast, the most successful creator on the planet, has spent half his career being unsuccessful.
And that’s the part no entrepreneurs ever fully appreciate until after they’ve already gone through it. We love the stories of overnight successes, rocket-ship growth, and viral moments. But we gloss over the grind that leads up to those moments — the years spent working in obscurity, the videos that barely get any views, the days when quitting seems like the only sane option.
Think about it: if MrBeast, with all his talent and instinct for content, needed six years of practice, trial, and error before anything clicked, what does that say about the rest of us? It’s a reminder that success is rarely a straight line. It’s more like a messy, looping scribble that only makes sense in hindsight.
And this isn’t just about YouTube or content creation. The same truth applies to every other flavor of entrepreneurship. The companies we admire — Airbnb, Netflix, Slack — they all spent years refining their products, pivoting, and failing repeatedly before they hit their stride. The unsexy part of success is the part that comes before the world starts paying attention.
So, if you’re in that grind phase right now — where it feels like you’re putting in endless effort with little to show for it — take a deep breath, as strange as it might seem, think about MrBeast. Just because the world isn’t watching yet doesn’t mean you’re not making progress. It just means you’re still in the part of the story that people like to skip over.
-Aaron
This week’s new articles…
Why Most Startups Fail Before They Ever Make a Sale
Inexperienced founders are constantly making the same mistake, and it’s easy to understand why once you know what it is.
One Dull Metric Eventually Determines the Outcome for Every Startup
The best entrepreneurs know not to get distracted by flashy datapoints that don’t mean very much.
Office Hours Q&A
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QUESTION:
Hey Aaron, I’ve been struggling with pricing my product. I don’t want to scare people off with prices that are too high, but I also don’t want to leave money on the table. How do you go about figuring out the right pricing strategy for a new product without a lot of data to go on?”
Thanks for your advice,
Rafa
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Figuring out what to charge for a startup’s product without a ton of data to guide you is definitely tricky challenge most entrepreneurs struggle with. And, to be clear, it really is hard. Pricing isn’t just math; it’s part psychology, part strategy, and part pure guesswork. In other words, if you’re struggling to get it right, just know you’re normal.
The problem with setting a price is that most of the popular pricing strategies have some pretty big flaws, especially for early-stage startups. For instance, a lot of people start by trying to base prices on costs. The logic makes sense on paper — figure out what it costs to make and deliver your product, add a margin, and boom, there’s your price. In reality, that strategy’s almost guaranteed to steer you wrong early on. Your costs at the start are always going to be high — small batches, inefficient processes, maybe even mistakes that make everything more expensive. Basing prices on those bloated early costs often leads to prices that are way too high for what the market will bear.
Then there’s the strategy of looking at your competitors and pricing around them. In theory, it makes sense — if someone else has already figured out what customers will pay, you might as well piggyback on that, right? The issue here is that you have no idea how well their pricing is actually working. They might be bleeding money or relying on a completely different business model (like upselling, subscriptions, or services) to make the numbers work. Plus, their audience might not be your audience, which throws off the comparison even more.
Another common approach is to base your price on perceived value — what people think your product is worth. That can work once you have a clear, established brand, but early on, no one even knows who you are. Trying to price based on perceived value when no one has any perception of you yet is basically a shot in the dark.
So if cost-based pricing is flawed, competitor-based pricing is flawed, and value-based pricing is flawed, what’s left? Honestly, trial and error. It might not sound glamorous, but pricing is one of those things you just have to experiment with until you find a sweet spot. Start somewhere, pay close attention to how the market responds, and adjust quickly based on what you see.
In practical terms, that might mean running short-term pricing tests, offering limited-time discounts, or even just straight-up asking customers what they’d be willing to pay. The goal isn’t to nail the perfect price on the first try — it’s to set up a system where you’re constantly gathering feedback and refining. Over time, as you learn more about your customers, their pain points, and how they perceive your product, you’ll start to zero in on a price that makes sense.
In other words, my best advice is to not waste too much energy trying to get the “right” price out of the gate. Focus instead on having a process that helps you get closer to the right price over time. Keep experimenting, stay flexible, and you’ll figure it out.
Got startup questions of your own? Reply to this email with whatever you want to know, and I’ll do my best to answer.