A line from Bob Dylan’s Love Minus Zero–No Limit:
She knows there’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all.
Once upon a time at a venture competition, the evening before the event, there was a judges’ meeting in which we all introduced ourselves to each other. You can guess most of our summaries: founder of this, investor in that, and so on.
One of us, however, said something like the following:
My real qualification for judging a business plan competition is I’ve recently taken my own company through bankruptcy, having run it into the ground by spending too much and selling too little for too long.
I’m paraphrasing, because this was years ago. But he made a good point. And all of the other judges, me included, accepted his reasoning. And he did an excellent job with the judging.
Food for thought from me, that judge (who shall remain nameless in this post), and Bob Dylan.
(Image: Granite/Shutterstock)
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
