An Essay on Entrepreneurship - Failure is Key

While applying for grad school, I had the option of going after a scholarship that was granted to future entrepreneurs who created a compelling business plan.   I had created a business plan several years ago and went through the process of starting up the company only to watch my business partner, who just happens to also be my father-in-law, spend the company into insolvency......which is not the point of this.

In applying for this scholarship, I had a horrible time coming up with a "NEW" entrepreneurial idea that I could formulate into a viable business plan.  So instead of being creative, I used the experience garnered by watching the demise of an organization I had spent several years building, and wrote a short 3,000 words on the fundamentals of the failure of enterprise.

The whole essay boiled down to one salient point.  Entrepreneurial experience and knowledge is generated through failure, not success.  Just like in life, business doesn't get better through things that were done "right", but rather, business gets better by fixing things that are broken, and broken means something "failed".

While the failure of my business has been painful and costly, and sometimes I regret ever having gone down that road in the first place, I have a much deeper understanding of some of the pitfalls that enterprises need to be on guard against.

But the real gem of the whole charade is that I haven't lost my entrepreneurial spirit/drive.  I just need to figure out how to break my next great idea!

By the way....the essay paid off!  another 10% off of tuition!