How do you feel about failure? Is it something you’re scared of, or something you embrace?

It might sound strange, but I am actually hoping I fail really badly in 2026. I hope there are some spectacular disasters.

Everyone else is out there planning to win big, but the truth is, the more I fail, the more I learn.

While success is awesome, sometimes it’s just blind luck. If you launch something and it works, but you don't know why it worked, you can't repeat it. You just have to cross your fingers and hope the stars align again next time.

Failure is different. Failure forces you to learn. It gives you feedback you can't ignore.

In this episode, I’m sharing why I’m aiming for failure next year, and why I’m opening up my business so you can watch the disasters unfold in real time.

In this episode:

1. Why success can sometimes be a trap because if you don't know why it worked, you can't do it again.
2. The story of my first membership launch disaster where I spent thousands on ads and cried in bed for days.
3. Why the first launch is never a pass or fail test, it is just the first set of data.
4. The problem with most debriefs online is that they are usually humblebrags designed to sell you something, rather than honest breakdowns of what went wrong.
5. Why I’m committed to sharing the autopsy of my flops in 2026, so you can get the lessons without having to make the same expensive mistakes.
6. 
   

Mentioned in this episode:

The 2026 Experiment: If you want to see the real debriefs—the good, the bad, and the ugly—come join me inside The 2026 Experiment. I’ll be sharing the full breakdown of every experiment (including the disasters) so you can learn what actually works right now.

Join now: theunicornadvisory.com/2026

Connect with Sue:

1. Instagram: @theunicornadvisory
2. Voxer: @unicornsue
3. Website: theunicornadvisory.com

Sue McLachlan: How do you feel about failure?

Sue McLachlan: Is it something that you're

Sue McLachlan: scared of or something that you

Sue McLachlan: embrace?

Sue McLachlan: Sue McLachlan here.

Sue McLachlan: Welcome back to Stop Guessing.

Sue McLachlan: Start testing.

Sue McLachlan: And you might find this hard to believe, but I am hoping that I

Sue McLachlan: fail really badly in 2026.

Sue McLachlan: I hope it is some kind of spectacular, disastrous failure.

Sue McLachlan: Everyone else is out there going, yeah, successful 2026 I

Sue McLachlan: want to win big and do everything perfectly, but the

Sue McLachlan: more I fail, the more I learn.

Sue McLachlan: And I really hope that you are going to be there to watch it.

Sue McLachlan: Because while success is awesome, I mean, I love success.

Sue McLachlan: I will admit I love failure as

Sue McLachlan: well because failure is

Sue McLachlan: feedback.

Sue McLachlan: Failure teaches you honestly so

Sue McLachlan: much more than success, because

Sue McLachlan: sometimes success is just pure

Sue McLachlan: blind luck.

Sue McLachlan: And if you launch something and it works really, really well,

Sue McLachlan: but you don't know why it works well, you might give yourself a

Sue McLachlan: high fives and you'll be feeling really, really good.

Sue McLachlan: But if you don't know why it worked, then you're not going to

Sue McLachlan: be able to do it again.

Sue McLachlan: So you might go to launch

Sue McLachlan: something else and it doesn't

Sue McLachlan: work.

Sue McLachlan: And then you feel like you are the problem, like you've done

Sue McLachlan: something wrong, when really it's just that you might not

Sue McLachlan: know enough about what caused you to have the blinding success

Sue McLachlan: in the first place.

Sue McLachlan: So next year I am aiming for failure.

Sue McLachlan: I am aiming to test every single

Sue McLachlan: thing that I'm doing in my

Sue McLachlan: business.

Sue McLachlan: Well, maybe not every single

Sue McLachlan: thing, but a heap of strategic

Sue McLachlan: key experiments.

Sue McLachlan: And the plans that I'm making for twenty twenty six are

Sue McLachlan: revolved around experimentation, trying things, seeing what

Sue McLachlan: worked, seeing what didn't work, looking at the numbers, looking

Sue McLachlan: at the metrics, and then using that information to improve,

Sue McLachlan: tweak, change and pivot so that I can see what is worth spending

Sue McLachlan: my time on.

Sue McLachlan: Like, I have a heap of ideas and if you, you know, want to follow

Sue McLachlan: everything that you see on social media, every email that

Sue McLachlan: you get, like it feels like there's a new idea of new

Sue McLachlan: strategy, new ways to do things, new type of product coming in

Sue McLachlan: all the time.

Sue McLachlan: Like there is absolutely no

Sue McLachlan: shortage of ideas and ways to do

Sue McLachlan: things.

Sue McLachlan: And that is the challenge because you can get so caught up

Sue McLachlan: in trying to pick the right thing to do, the right type of

Sue McLachlan: product, the right pricing, um, the right messaging, the right

Sue McLachlan: launch strategy, all of it.

Sue McLachlan: There's so many things where

Sue McLachlan: you're trying to pick, you know,

Sue McLachlan: maybe do what someone else has

Sue McLachlan: done, but you never know if it's

Sue McLachlan: going to work until you actually

Sue McLachlan: do it, until you get some

Sue McLachlan: momentum and you put things into

Sue McLachlan: place.

Sue McLachlan: And what if you do it and it is a disaster?

Sue McLachlan: It doesn't work.

Sue McLachlan: No one signs up, you get no sales.

Sue McLachlan: Um, or sales are really, really slow.

Sue McLachlan: That can actually teach you so much more than a huge success.

Sue McLachlan: Because then you will want to dive in.

Sue McLachlan: You'll want to do a bit of a

Sue McLachlan: post mortem, and sometimes you

Sue McLachlan: might, you know, go into that

Sue McLachlan: place where you'll have all the

Sue McLachlan: emotional reactions.

Sue McLachlan: I totally understand that my very first launch in twenty

Sue McLachlan: nineteen of a membership product was what, you know, you could

Sue McLachlan: call a disaster.

Sue McLachlan: It was a membership launch and I was so pumped.

Sue McLachlan: I spent thousands of dollars on ads.

Sue McLachlan: I'd spent months building this membership platform.

Sue McLachlan: I was convinced that this was the thing.

Sue McLachlan: And I launched it at Black Friday, and I had three sign

Sue McLachlan: ups, and I spent days crying in bed after that.

Sue McLachlan: But that is because I didn't gather enough data first.

Sue McLachlan: I thought I had, but I hadn't

Sue McLachlan: really looked into what happens

Sue McLachlan: when you are trying to advertise

Sue McLachlan: on Black Friday to a brand new

Sue McLachlan: audience?

Sue McLachlan: With a brand new offer, you are going to have really expensive

Sue McLachlan: ad costs and be drowned out.

Sue McLachlan: Um, it's there's so many lessons

Sue McLachlan: and, you know, I figured that

Sue McLachlan: out afterwards.

Sue McLachlan: At the time, I was pretty emotional.

Sue McLachlan: And, you know, when I did do some research into why people

Sue McLachlan: didn't buy, it was obvious.

Sue McLachlan: People didn't understand quite what they were getting.

Sue McLachlan: I hadn't quite nailed the messaging.

Sue McLachlan: And so what I was able to do was tweak and change things.

Sue McLachlan: And if you don't go through that process, if you don't get

Sue McLachlan: something in motion and take some of your emotion and your

Sue McLachlan: kind of personal attachment out of things and look at it a

Sue McLachlan: little bit more logically, then you could miss the lessons.

Sue McLachlan: You could walk away from something.

Sue McLachlan: I have talked to so many course creators over the years who have

Sue McLachlan: abandoned really great courses or fantastic offers, because

Sue McLachlan: they launched it in a very meek way, and it didn't make them ten

Sue McLachlan: thousand dollars overnight like they had been promised.

Sue McLachlan: They thought if they only had

Sue McLachlan: seven people sign up when they

Sue McLachlan: had one hundred people on their

Sue McLachlan: email list.

Sue McLachlan: So that was some kind of failing on their part.

Sue McLachlan: Like they that it wasn't worth trying again, instead of looking

Sue McLachlan: at it as being, hey, the first launch is just the first launch.

Sue McLachlan: What happens when you take what

Sue McLachlan: you learned, tweak things,

Sue McLachlan: change, improve and launch

Sue McLachlan: again, and then launch again,

Sue McLachlan: and then grow your audience more

Sue McLachlan: and dial your messaging in and

Sue McLachlan: understand why people bought and

Sue McLachlan: what, um, the people who didn't

Sue McLachlan: buy, what were their objections

Sue McLachlan: so that you can address all of

Sue McLachlan: that?

Sue McLachlan: There is so much to learn from failing.

Sue McLachlan: So I am really hoping to fail.

Sue McLachlan: I mean, I'm not going to try and fail.

Sue McLachlan: Obviously.

Sue McLachlan: I don't think that's ever

Sue McLachlan: anyone's goal, but I'm just

Sue McLachlan: hoping that that is one of the

Sue McLachlan: outcomes of the twenty twenty

Sue McLachlan: six experiment.

Sue McLachlan: I will be debriefing everything that I try, because I feel like

Sue McLachlan: there is so much rarity of the honest look at debriefs.

Sue McLachlan: I've seen a lot of debriefs in my time.

Sue McLachlan: Some are definitely better than others, and the ones that have

Sue McLachlan: been the least useful were basically the massive.

Sue McLachlan: Like, I made four hundred thousand dollars off this

Sue McLachlan: launch, you know, let me tell you what I did.

Sue McLachlan: Or, um, you know, that I made four million dollars last year

Sue McLachlan: or some of the ones where I feel like the debrief was not

Sue McLachlan: designed for transparency, but more designed to put that

Sue McLachlan: creator in a really good light, so they could have a bit of a

Sue McLachlan: humble brag about what they did, and rarely they go into the

Sue McLachlan: details of what they did.

Sue McLachlan: They might share this amazing strategy, but they don't talk

Sue McLachlan: about the pitfalls.

Sue McLachlan: They'll really talk about how

Sue McLachlan: much time it took them to

Sue McLachlan: implement that strategy in the

Sue McLachlan: team, resources that went

Sue McLachlan: alongside that, and will often

Sue McLachlan: gloss over some of the less

Sue McLachlan: flattering parts.

Sue McLachlan: And it is even rarer.

Sue McLachlan: I mean, I'm sure that it must exist, but it's very, very rare

Sue McLachlan: and uncommon to see people debriefing something that didn't

Sue McLachlan: work at all, because the creator may see that as embarrassing, or

Sue McLachlan: they might be a little bit ashamed that, you know, they're

Sue McLachlan: someone who sells.

Sue McLachlan: I don't know how to sell courses.

Sue McLachlan: And then they had a course that

Sue McLachlan: didn't sell, and that's totally

Sue McLachlan: understandable.

Sue McLachlan: But I've kind of got this view

Sue McLachlan: that in twenty twenty six, I

Sue McLachlan: don't care.

Sue McLachlan: Not that I don't care.

Sue McLachlan: I want to to have the failings

Sue McLachlan: because I'm looking for

Sue McLachlan: learnings.

Sue McLachlan: I want to know what works and what doesn't.

Sue McLachlan: And right now I don't have as much confidence.

Sue McLachlan: I want to know if the

Sue McLachlan: fundamentals of online business,

Sue McLachlan: you know, the stock standard

Sue McLachlan: course sold with a webinar, you

Sue McLachlan: know, the most common strategy

Sue McLachlan: that existed years ago, but

Sue McLachlan: because it existed and it's

Sue McLachlan: still being used now because it

Sue McLachlan: works.

Sue McLachlan: And I want to know if that is still a really good fundamental

Sue McLachlan: and whether you can, um, launch using those fundamentals and

Sue McLachlan: then make tweaks and changes.

Sue McLachlan: I want to know what is working and to find out what's working.

Sue McLachlan: That's also going to involve finding out what's not working.

Sue McLachlan: Um, so I want to know why as well, why did something work or

Sue McLachlan: why did something not work.

Sue McLachlan: And I want to share it all with you.

Sue McLachlan: So some of the things that I'm

Sue McLachlan: going to try are very much going

Sue McLachlan: to put me outside of my comfort

Sue McLachlan: zone.

Sue McLachlan: Um, I'm super curious to find out what happens in my giant

Sue McLachlan: year long online course experiment where I look at

Sue McLachlan: evergreen versus live, launching, um, and self-study

Sue McLachlan: courses versus courses where there is some kind of live

Sue McLachlan: support component to go with it.

Sue McLachlan: And I'm going to be sharing the full breakdown and hopefully the

Sue McLachlan: most interesting things for you, because I'm pretty sure it's

Sue McLachlan: going to be the most interesting for me is when I do the debriefs

Sue McLachlan: of the disasters.

Sue McLachlan: As you know, that insight is worth so much more than a

Sue McLachlan: blueprint of someone else's success where you don't know all

Sue McLachlan: of the factors that went making that a success for them.

Sue McLachlan: You don't know, or maybe even have access to half of the

Sue McLachlan: resources that person had.

Sue McLachlan: So following this may give you some really cool insights for

Sue McLachlan: your own business, and hopefully it's going to inspire you to be

Sue McLachlan: more experimental as well, to be less attached to the outcome,

Sue McLachlan: and more interested in testing things which can just really

Sue McLachlan: change your mindset and give you a beautiful, positive approach

Sue McLachlan: for the year.

Sue McLachlan: Because if you can't fail and you can only learn, then it's

Sue McLachlan: going to make you so much more open to trying things.

Sue McLachlan: And hopefully when you try

Sue McLachlan: things out and you learn what

Sue McLachlan: does work, and that is going to

Sue McLachlan: be different for everyone,

Sue McLachlan: because what works is such a

Sue McLachlan: subjective concept.

Sue McLachlan: Um, so when you work out what works for you, then that's going

Sue McLachlan: to allow you to spend more time on the what works for you and

Sue McLachlan: maybe ditch some of the things that have been stealing all your

Sue McLachlan: energy and attention, and have more time for the things that

Sue McLachlan: are going to help you have a more successful business in

Sue McLachlan: twenty twenty six.

Sue McLachlan: The twenty twenty six experiment where all of this is happening

Sue McLachlan: is open now.

Sue McLachlan: um, it is available and it's going to be open all throughout

Sue McLachlan: twenty twenty six.

Sue McLachlan: But if you are very lucky and you are listening to this in

Sue McLachlan: December before the first of January, you'll still be able to

Sue McLachlan: get in on early access with a very special discount.

Sue McLachlan: And if not, you can come and jump in anytime.

Sue McLachlan: Everyone who joins will get

Sue McLachlan: access to all of the debriefs,

Sue McLachlan: and there'll be a private

Sue McLachlan: podcast of those debriefs as

Sue McLachlan: well.

Sue McLachlan: So even if you just got the

Sue McLachlan: debriefs, it's going to be

Sue McLachlan: incredible value.

Sue McLachlan: And if you want, you can take part in the ongoing live

Sue McLachlan: commentary, kind of live journaling of me working through

Sue McLachlan: the experiments that sort of day to day minutiae of it, which

Sue McLachlan: sometimes may have the biggest lessons, and maybe you just want

Sue McLachlan: to follow the experiments that are most interesting to you and

Sue McLachlan: leave some of the rest of them.

Sue McLachlan: It's the beautiful thing about this you can take as much as you

Sue McLachlan: want, and there will never be anything to fall behind on,

Sue McLachlan: because the debriefs are going to be there for when you want

Sue McLachlan: them, when you need them, and any other participation is just

Sue McLachlan: up to you.

Sue McLachlan: Like whatever is going to work

Sue McLachlan: best for the season that you're

Sue McLachlan: in.

Sue McLachlan: Maybe you'll pay more attention to an experiment that you want

Sue McLachlan: to try yourself, and maybe you'll get some inspo, and

Sue McLachlan: you'll use the same experiment that I'm doing in your business

Sue McLachlan: and see how that works for you.

Sue McLachlan: I'm super, super excited to be leading this community of

Sue McLachlan: experimenters and people who want to find the results of

Sue McLachlan: experimenting, and just having a whole lot of fun inside the

Sue McLachlan: twenty twenty six experiment.

Sue McLachlan: So if you want to join me, go to theunicornadvisory.com/2026 and

Sue McLachlan: get the breakdown of my disasters, my flops, hopefully

Sue McLachlan: giant successes as well, and let's learn from it.

Sue McLachlan: Let's make 2026 the year of experiments.