I recently received an email from a former student of mine, Mrin. It was a thoughtful debrief on why she had decided to shut down the company I had been coaching her on last year for the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge, an annual start-up competition and accelerator program sponsored by Chicago Booth. The experience was a difficult one for her, and she told me she had trouble disentangling the failure from her personal identity. In her own words, which she has given me permission to share, “I’ve never been more aware of how much I don’t know. And, at the same time, I’ve never learned so much so quickly. Shutting down the company has had me grappling with feelings of failure while questioning my self-worth and abilities.”
