Many years ago, I set up a joint venture involving the Russian real estate market.

My partner Philip Bay had a successful business in Russia and Bulgaria catering primarily to foreign companies looking to expand into these emerging markets and foreign governments looking for housing and/or office space. He saw European companies buying, selling, owning, and managing properties across Moscow and thought that U.S. developers needed to hone their competitive edge in this new frontier.

Hence the genesis of our monthly subscription newsletter. Bay would guide content; I would be editor-in-chief responsible for writing, production, and distribution.

Moscow Property Market lasted for two (very-well-received) issues. Then a Russian constitutional crisis set back investment–and effectively shut us down.

Sometimes you can do everything right and still fail.

But it wasn’t a failure.

The difference between failing and failure is what you do next.

Photo by Holger Zscheyge (Flickr).