Powerpoint sucks.
Every one of us has been subjected on numerous occasions to a desert dry Powerpoint presentation where the speaker recites the words you can already see on the slide, points to various graphs, and arranges key takeaways in neat groups of three en route to 60 minutes of foot-twitching boredom... *yawn*
And yet one fateful Wednesday 5 years ago in Huntsman Hall (don’t quote me on the day), it was a Powerpoint presentation that changed my life.
As part of Professor Mollick’s Intro to Entrepreneurship class, we often had guest speakers come in to talk about their Entrepreneurial experiences. The speaker of the day was a venture capitalist who started his career as a serial entrepreneur.
For most of the presentation I was probably half-listening as I daydreamed and doodled and thought about lunch until slide 16 changed the game and stopped me in my tracks.
On this slide, the speaker listed out not his achievements or accolades or successes, but his FAILURES ― sixteen businesses that never took flight, went belly up, or exploded for a number of reasons.
He talked through these failures ― businesses in various related & unrelated disciplines ― in detail. Some were before their time; some he was late to the party; some were just stupid ideas; some he was beaten in the execution phase; some he ran out of time or money... all were ultimately failures ― failures he was able to reflect on, be honest about, and learn from, each time getting better, stronger, and more resilient as an entrepreneur.
His 17th business sold for $70 million and his 18th sold for $20 million (honestly these numbers might be 10 times larger... I don’t remember, but I think you get my point).
As class closed, I remained glued to my seat for another 10 minutes in a state of reflection, my life forever changed. Thanks to this Powerpoint, I knew exactly what I had to do to succeed.
Hear this story and many more from my journey on the Daily Spark Podcast along with my conversations with successful and inspiring entrepreneurs.
Muoyo Okome is host of the Daily Spark Podcast and founder of the Daily Spark Entrepreneur Community, a fast-growing online community dedicated to the empowerment, education & support of entrepreneurs. He has previously started, grown, and sold a mobile gaming company and runs several businesses in the mobile, online & e-commerce spaces.
A career-long technology professional and alumnus of the Princeton University (BA) and The Wharton School (MBA), his prior experience includes software engineering, consulting, and business management roles at companies such as Microsoft & IBM.