We can all learn from our mistakes, especially in business, mistakes should motivate people to try again, not give up. But can we also learn from the historic business failures of the greats, i think so, over the next few days i am going to detail 5 of them.

You only need to see one episode of Dragon’s Den to realise just how laughable perfectly sane-looking people’s business ideas can be. And to see just how cruel a world it is. While the likes of guitar-playing Levi Roots and his Reggae Reggae sauce have become a household names, others, like Jacquie Edwards and her disposable toilet seat covers, are laughed out of town by Duncan Ballantyne and co. But you’ve got to applaud them for trying.

It’s when a businessman or woman who should have known better sees their business dream, not surprisingly, hit the buffers that you can’t help but ask how on earth they ever expected it to take off.

Take Metronet. It says in its own words that it’s “responsible for transforming the world’s first underground railway into a metro system expected of a capital city in the 21st century”. But then that was before it went into administration. And the strikes happened. And the London tube network ground to a halt.

But on the positive side, they say you actually learn more from your disasters than your successes.

As Nigel Nicholson, a psychologist from the London Business School, said:

“One of the lessons of failure is that you are doing the wrong thing.”

And the best thing of all is that you can learn just as much (and save both face and your money) by taking a close look at how not to do it – from the experts who’ve done it so badly.

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