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.

Jake Gonsalves

One story of failure I have comes from a freelance project for a Japanese-style shave ice food truck. The design process was going smoothly despite the language barrier. Once the artwork got approved, I moved on to the production phase. As an additional service, I offer to oversee the production of goods with products like apparel, accessories, and printables. Read more>>

Sarah Shaw

I had a very successful handbag company called Sarah Shaw Handbags. Over 5 years we grew to over $1M in annual sales, were in 1200 stores in the USA, including Bloomingdales, Saks 5th Ave, Nordstrom Barney’s, Henri Bendel, and Bergdorf Goodman. I had handbags in the movies Legally Blonde, Ocean’s 11 and America’s Sweetheart as well as on TV shows like Friends and Will & Grace. Celebrities Sharon Stone, Jennifer Aniston, and Oprah had all used my bags. I was on the TV shows Access Hollywood and E! Entertainment. Read more>>

Laura Chester

When I assumed ownership of Details Wine Bar, many processes and systems were already in place. It was overwhelming, but I chose to tackle all the systems that I felt were lacking. That decision later led to the oversight of possibly the most important system of all and resulted in a failure that changed my business forever. Read more>>