Free What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 by Tina Seelig Page B

then falling before finally mastering the skill that as an adult we take for granted. As a child gets older, each new feat, from catching a baseball to doing algebra, is learned the same way, by experimenting until you are finally successful. We don’t expect a child to do everything perfectly the first time, nor should we expect adults who take on complex tasks to get it all right the first time, either.
    I’ve come to believe that the most powerful learning comes from experiencing failures as well as successes. It is also nearly impossible to learn anything without doing it yourself, by experimenting along the way, and by recovering from the inevitable failures. You can’t learn to play soccer by reading the rulebook, you can’t learn to play the piano by studying sheets of music, and you can’t learn to cook by reading recipes. I’m reminded of my time as a graduate student in neuroscience. I had taken several courses in which we “learned” the principles of neurophysiology. Although I could pass a written test on the material, it wasn’t until I was in the lab, dissecting nerves under a microscope, impaling them with tiny electrodes, and manually turning the dials on the oscilloscope, that I fully understood the concepts. Likewise, you can read as many books on leadership as you want, but until you experience the challenges that face real leaders, you will never be prepared to take charge.
    The Mayfield Fellows Program, which I co-direct with Tom Byers, a professor in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, gives students this opportunity. 4 After one quarter of classroom work, during which we offer an in-depth introduction to entrepreneurship through case studies, the twelve students in this nine-month program spend the summer working in startup companies. They take on key roles in each business and are closely mentored by senior leaders in the company. They experience firsthand what it is like to identify and address the white-hot risks that face each organization, the stresses of making decisions with incomplete information, and the challenge of leading in an ever-changing environment. After the intense summer experience, the students come back to class for ten weeks of debriefing about what happened in their respective companies. Each student leads a class on an important issue that evolved during their internship.
    The students in the Mayfield Fellows Program have profound insights about what it means to run a fast-paced business in a dynamic environment. They watch these companies struggle with issues such as running out of cash, retooling after a change in the senior management team, the challenge of getting cutting-edge technology to work, and the daunting task of competing against giants in the industry. By the end of the summer, the students realize that only a handful of the companies for which they worked will be in business in a year or two. Despite all of the efforts of talented teams, many of them will fail.
     

    The entire venture capital industry essentially invests in failures, since the majority of the companies they fund eventually go under. Other industries have a similar success rate, including the toy industry, the movie business, and the publishing industry. Consider book publishing: According to Nielsen Bookscan, of the approximately 1.2 million different books in print in 2004, only 25,000, or 2 percent, sold more than 5,000 copies, and the average book in the U.S., sells less than 500 copies. However, it is nearly impossible to predict which ones will be the big hits. As a result, publishers continue to produce many different books, hoping that each will be a success but knowing that only a tiny fraction will make it onto the bestseller list. Publishers, toy makers, movie producers, and venture capitalists understand that the path to success is littered with failures.
    Mir Imran, a serial entrepreneur, has started dozens of companies, many in parallel. 5 His success rate has