Over the years, after talking with tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, artists and creatives, almost every success story we’ve heard has been filled with stories of failure.  Unfortunately, in our view the media rarely covers these parts of the story – instead we often read summaries that make it seem like success happened “overnight.”  However, what we’ve learned in our conversations with so many successful folks is that failure is core ingredient in the recipe for future success.  Below, we’ve shared some fascinating stories of failure from folks who have ultimately found great success.

James Johnston

When planning Fire and Brimstone in 2016 I never actually intended for it to be a pizza focused restaurant, but I’m so glad that it has. As I was planning and working towards opening, the goal was for the restaurant to focus on wood fired cooking in general, not particularly pizza. The menu was much higher end than what we serve now and had quite a few time consuming and difficult to execute dishes on it. I was really proud of the menu that myself and my general manager Matt had come up with, and I really believed we could pull it off and create a really unique place in Gilbert. Read more>>

Emmanuel Damian

Starting a business can be a daunting task. You often ask yourself “When do you start?” or “How can I start it?” Along the way, you commit mistakes and end up as a failure. I remember my first few pitches for my business. I sent 100 emails. I got 90 rejections, 7 no responses and 3 maybes. It didn’t stop me. The key for failure is trying to please everybody. Keeping that in mind, I sticked to my mission & vision while putting the things I genuinely like to do in my business instead of what other people will think about it. Honesty and authenticity were my ingredients to success. If you learn how to fail fast, you get to be innovative and to be creative. Read more>>

Rene Garcia

In the late Spring of 2015, I was starting a new quarter at my film school (for reference, the school year was divided up into “quarters” and not regular, old semesters). It was going to be an important quarter as this was to be the production phase of my Senior Film Thesis project. We had been given a script to produce into a short film and had started all the pre-production work the quarter before hand; we were now weeks away from starting to film at this point. I was assigned the role of Lighting Director, and unfortunately, I was not the most knowledgeable when it came to lighting at the time. Read more>>

Rhami Aboud

On December 1, 2021 our Project Manager resigned and gave us 0 days notice. This was obviously not the ending we wanted for 2021. This put us into a tailspin and we had to band together to pick up his slack, while also searching for a new PM to join the team. For me personally, this lead to a challenging 2 months as I had to perform my typical CEO duties + some PM duties + HR/hiring duties. Going through this experience was tough but it taught me some valuable lessons: in order to run a successful business you need to minimize risk as much as possible. For me the greatest risks associated with running a business are human-based. Read more>>

David Byrd

During the first few years of our first portrait studio, my wife and I struggled to navigate a world of “the wins” and the “not so much wins.” In almost every facet of our business we were very much learning on the job. Learning things like the way to capture the right image that sells, how to sell it and what to sell it on. The only part of the work (for me) that wasn’t a struggle was the Photoshop artwork. Don’t get me wrong, I struggled with it as I am mostly self-taught, but the challenge of finding the tools and techniques was a welcome one. The challenges of everything else in our business – was not. Read more>>

Beth Wand

Eight years ago, I knew I wanted to do something, I just didn’t quite know what that something was. I finally was able to define that internal push as the fact that I wanted to be paid to write. I had started my own blog and it was a wonderful creative outlet, but I didn’t know if it could be monetized. I wrote for free for two local blogs hoping to gain some followers of my personal blog and make some connections, but over time it became more work than it was worth. I stumbled upon an online course that had a connection to someone I knew professionally. Read more>>

Kelly Stark

Recently a client asked me for a “post-mortem” to understand why our Start Right-Finish Well marketing strategy workshop and marketing tactics didn’t achieve the desired goals. I look forward to learning from my failures to turn the next launch into success. One of the lessons learned from the project is that we didn’t question the client’s goals and sales cycle even though we thought they were too aggressive. Forward Vision’s Start Right – Finish Well™ strategy workshop is a philosophy built on the right idea that virtually all-important venture capitalists and company leaders would agree that you must define the goals to start right. Read more>>

Corie Rosen

Failure is every artist’s cruelest friend. At least, it’s my cruelest buddy! A few years ago, I was invited to read at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, which if you aren’t familiar with it is absolutely THE literary place in Denver, if not in the entire Mountain West. I was reading with a group of writers who were all more accomplished than I was, and I just thrilled to be invited. At the end of the reading, the moderator asked each of us to discuss the rejections we’d received in the lead up to having our stories published. To a one, every reader said their story hadn’t been difficult to get into print. Read more>>

Tiffany Smith- Paul

I believe my biggest failure has been not listening to my intuition, wants and desires on what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve always had a secret passion for writing and interior design, but I never knew that you could actually make a living doing those things. I suppose this assumption was derived from not knowing anyone personally who has done it. So in college I took the safe route and majored in healthcare administration. Not only did I do this once but I also did it twice by getting a Masters degree in it. Only to end up in an occupation that didn’t require neither! Lol. However, in hind sight I suppose this wasn’t a “failure” but more so a lesson. Read more>>

Steven Humble

Prior to the 2008 housing crisis we were doing well and thought we had it made in the shade. When house building halted we had to layoff almost the entire staff and still we nearly lost everything. But that experience shaped the way we did business moving forward and really paved the way for the much greater success we’ve experienced since in 2 major ways: 1. During the emotionally-draining hard times, the stress I felt was literally crippling. My greatest consolation and comfort at that time was the knowledge that I had always been fair and ethical to my customers. I might loose my livelihood but I will still have my integrity. Read more>>

Tyrone DeNeal

I started my sales representative company on November 4, 2016. I chose to start an independent sales representative business so I could leverage over 42 years of sales and marketing experience with General Electric Company. My first principals were in Contract Manufacturing companies, later signed up a couple automation companies and more recently I signed up manufacturer of high efficiency electric motors. Representing a high efficiency electric motor manufacturer gave me an entrée into the energy efficiency space. The technology is revolutionary. The most significant advancement in motor design technology in over 60 years. Read more>>

Vanessa Kohnen

Typically in the nonprofit world, volunteers are the number #1 partner to be successful. When you approach the type of work we do, everyone tends to bring past trauma and hurt. We all want to be needed and give back. One of the biggest lessons I have learned, is not skip the part of meeting the needs of my volunteers. When you run a ranch, the work load is beyond just a 9-5 job. It is a 24 hour on demand, up in the middle of the night, sleeping with the sick horses type of work. So when you have volunteers that want to help, you forget they are there for personal healing and growth. Along with your own personal needs. Read more>>