How Failure Made These Entrepreneurs Millions

By Jane Porter, Entrepreneur.com, June 14, 2013

When Steve Blank appeared on the cover of Wired magazine nine years ago, his company then, Rocket Science Games, was expected to revolutionize the videogame industry. At the time, Blank didn't let the skepticism of critics faze him.

"I thought I was a genius," he says. Three months later, when he called his mother to let her know he was about to lose $35 million in investor funding, he wasn't feeling quite so genius anymore.

"I had lots of choices, including that I could have quit," he says. "Learning from that failure for me was one of the best experiences of my life." And learn he did. In 1996, Blank founded the startup E.piphany, which went on to earn $1 billion for each of its investors.

In the past 10 years, says Blank, the culture around entrepreneurship has become increasingly failure-friendly. Serial entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley hop from one failed business to the next and billionaire entrepreneurs like Richard Branson wax on publicly about their failures almost as much as their successes. Still, "no one likes to fail," says Blank. "We are hardwired for success."

But what if you could actually use failure to help you succeed? Here are five keys to start failing your way to success:

1. Call failure something else.

2. Use failure as a stepping stone.

3. Never fail alone.

4. Don't hide your failures

5. Redefine what you want.

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