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.

Kelechi Kay Kay” Uchendu”

Several years ago, before I was sold or featured in a retail store, I was using a cut and sew manufacturing company that had horrible quality control. I was very naïve back then so I missed all of the red flags with that company and continued to do business with them. Read more>>

Mica Hyche

Hi, I had two situations that financially CO$T me and they both went bad at the same time, with people that I thought I could trust. One was a real estate transaction and the other was a personal business transaction. I cried, couldn’t forgive myself for dropping the ball and not crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s. Read more>>

Jasmine Harding

I’m a loc stylist therefore most of the heads that I deal with are dreadheads. One time a client came to me with an emergency hair situation. He was flying out the next day and desperately needed someone to do his hair but he wanted braids. I hadn’t done braids in years and the length of my nails posed a great disadvantage to the challenge at hand. Read more>>

Shelby Beckman

I opened a boutique fitness studio based off of a concept I found when I lived in LA… and I didn’t make it to 3 years. It was a hard pill to swallow and very humbling. I had never taken a leap of faith like I did when I decided to open a business and I have never failed so royally. Read more>>