Here are some of Trump's noteworthy business failures.

1. Trump Airlines
In 1988, Trump took out a $245 million loan to purchase the planes
and routes of Eastern Air Shuttle. He slapped a TRUMP decal and
some gold bathroom fixtures on the commuter planes that flew
between New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., but customers
weren't charmed. Two years after he launched Trump Shuttle, the
airline wasn't making enough money to even cover the $1 million
monthly interest payment on his loan. Trump ultimately defaulted,
surrendering ownership of the airline to his creditors.

2. Trump beverages
Perhaps you're aware of Trump Ice — "one of the purest natural
spring waters bottled in the world," according to the Trump's
website. The line of water, which is bottled by a third party, is not a
failure; according to his FEC disclosure, Trump made $280,000 off
it last year. But Trump's other forays into the beverage market have
been less successful. Undoubtedly intended to play on
his Apprentice catchphrase, Trump Fire was trademarked in 2004,
but it does not appear to have ever made it to market. Trump
trademarked the name Trump Power at the same time. Both drinks
were categorized as "non-alcoholic beverages containing fruit
juices... namely, carbonated beverages" on their trademark
applications. The only trace remaining of either are the trademark
applications that were abandoned in 2006. The same goes for
Trump's American Pale Ale, the trademark for which was cancelled
in 2007.

3. Trump: The Game

In 1988, Trump teamed up with Milton Bradley to create Trump: The
Game. Despite its flashy TV ad, the game sold only 800,000 copies
— less than half the 2 million units the company expected to move.
When it was discontinued in 1990, Trump chalked the game's dismal
sales up to the fact that it might have been "too complicated." The
failure apparently didn't deter Hasbro from releasing a re-branded
version of the game in 2004 to capitalize on Trump's Apprentice-
related popularity. Trump said he expected the Hasbro version of his
game to sell more copies than the original, but it too quickly went
out of circulation.

4. Trump casinos
Trump has filed for bankruptcy on his Atlantic City properties alone
three times. First was the Trump Taj Mahal in 1991 — which was $3
billion in debt after just one year in operation. He was back in
bankruptcy court in 2004, and not just for the Trump Taj Mahal but
for the Trump Marina and Trump Plaza casinos, which along with a
riverboat casino in Indiana had a debt burden of some $1.8 billion.
After the bankruptcy, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts reorganized
as Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. Four years later, Trump
Entertainment Resorts missed an interest payment on a $53.1
million bond; the company declared bankruptcy, and this time Trump
stepped down as its chairman.

5. Trump magazine
Trump launched his eponymous magazine in late 2007, reinventing a
publication that had previously been called Trump Style and Trump
World. His idea was to "[cash] in on the booming advertising market
for yachts and other high-end commodities." The timing, of course,
couldn't have been worse for a magazine, particularly one
dependent on luxury advertising. It didn't survive the financial
crisis, folding by 2009.

6. Trump Mortgage
"I think it's a great time to start a mortgage company," Trump
famously predicted to CNBC in April 2006. "The real-estate market
is going to be very strong for a long time to come." In reality, the
markethad already begun deflating at that point and would collapse
within a matter of months. Unsurprisingly, Trump Mortgage's
business fell far short of its projections, doing less than a third of
the $3 billion in business executives predicted it would to do in its
first year. At the time, Trump blamed the failure on the executives
who run the company. He had tapped E.J. Ridings for the company's
CEO position; the company's website boasted Ridings as having
been a "top executive of one of Wall Street's most prestigious
investment banks," but Money Magazine later found he had just six
months of experience as a stockbroker before he went to work a
small mortgage company. Trump Mortgage shuttered in September
2007. According to the Washington Post, the company never paid a
$298,274 judgement it owed a former employee, nor the $3,555 it
owed in unpaid taxes.

7. Trump Steaks
When Trump filed for bankruptcy on his Atlantic City properties for
the second of three times, court records showed he owed the
Georgia company Buckhead Beef some $715,240. Two years later, in
2007, Trump struck a deal sell Buckhead Beef through the futuristic
gadget store the Sharper Image. CEO Jerry Levin would later
tell ThinkProgress it was "a bad business idea."

"[W]e literally sold almost no steaks," Levin said. "If we sold

$50,000 of steaks grand total, I'd be surprised." The steaks were
pulled from shelves after just two months of abysmal sales, but the
Trump Steaks commercial has, blessedly, been preserved for
posterity.

8. Trump's travel site

Like many of his business ventures, GoTrump.com was a gaudier
version of an existing product — the travel booking website
Travelocity, in this case. It launched in 2006 to low
expectations:Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research told
the Washington Post it was a "vanity site" that wouldn't make much
money. He was right; it folded in 2007. Trump never gave up the URL,
though — today it directs back to his campaign website.

9. Trump's comms company

Trump registered a trademark for Trumpnet under the category of
"corporate telephone communication services" in 1990. Whatever it
was going to be, it never got off the ground; the trademark was
abandoned in 1992.

10. Trump Tower Tampa

The 52-story Trump Tower in Tampa wasn't conceived of or proposed
or drafted up by Donald Trump — he just sold the use of his name to
developers of the $300 million condo project for a cool $2 million.
They, in turn, collected downpayments from individual buyers drawn
in by the Trump mystique. After the project went belly-up in 2008
(itlisted two scale models and some office furniture, worth a grand
total of $3,500, as its only assets in bankruptcy court) buyers sued
Trump for misleading them. He eventually settled, in some cases for
as little as $11,115, with plaintiffs who had lost hundreds of
thousands of dollars.

11. Trump University

Also known at the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, Trump University
was a series of wealth-building seminars for which students paid as
much as $34,995 for mentorships that would supposedly get them
access to Trump's secrets of success. Instead of the hand-picked
instructors Trump promised, the seminars were delivered by
motivational speakers, oftenwithout degrees, and sometimes with
criminal records. According to his FEC filings, Trump brought in
$11,819 from the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative last year; he's now
the subject of two class-action lawsuits in California related to
Trump University, and a third suit, for $40 million, brought by New
York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

12. Trump Vodka

Trump Vodka — "Success Distilled," to quote its press materials —
appeared in 2006. Trump said at the time, "I fully expect the most
called for cocktail in America to be the T&T or the Trump and
Tonic." The liquor flopped, maybe in part because of Trump's
reputation as a teetotaler didn't inspire a lot of confidence in his
taste in hard alcohol. The trademark was abandoned in 2008, and
the liquor was out of circulation by 2011.

13. Lost future earnings from calling Mexicans rapists

Trump kissed millions of dollars in future earnings goodbye last
summer when he called Mexicans rapists and criminals in his
campaign announcement speech. "Yeah, I'm losing some contracts,
who cares, people – politically they're weak and they want to be
politically correct," he said at the time.

For instance, he was dumped by NBC, the home of Trump's

beloved Apprentice franchise. According to his FEC fillings, Trump
brought in some $213 million over 14 seasons of the franchise, or
about $15.2 million per cycle. He had left the door open to return
to Celebrity Apprentice, but NBC eventually announced it was
finding a new host.

Then there were Trump's cologne brands, Success by Trump and

Empire by Trump, which were sold exclusively by Macy's until both
the retailer and the cologne maker dropped the mogul.
(Unfortunately for Trump, he didn't have that excuse in 2007,
when Donald Trump: The Fragrance — his first foray into the market
— was discontinued.)

Likewise, Macy's discontinued Trump's line of menswear, which it

had carried for 11 years. According to his financial disclosure, it
brought in between $1 million and $5 million — not the kind of
money a man who once cashed a 16-cent check would spit at.

And Serta announced it would stop selling its Trump-

branded mattress, which, according to Trump's FEC filings, brought
in another $1 million and $5 million in royalties every year.

Conquering a new international market can be tricky. Even the largest companies make
mistakes — and you can learn from them. For example, here are 3 times big brands tried
to expand into new countries, only to come limping back. Let’s see what lessons we can
take from these international business failures.

Starbucks in Israel

With more than 24,000 stores in 70 countries, Starbucks is no stranger to international

business. But their attempt at expanding into Israel was not quite so successful. The
first Starbucks in Israel opened in Tel Aviv in 2001. The plan was to open 20 Israeli stores
in just the first year. But by 2003, the coffee company was abandoning the country
entirely. What happened?

Middle Eastern politics being what the are, the store closings ignited a firestorm of
contradictory rumours. Did they close because they hate Israel? Are they secretly a
“Muslim organisation?” Or were they secretly sending profits to support the Israeli Army?
The truth is out there!

No, really, it is…it’s just not that exciting.

Starbucks expected Israeli consumers to give them the royal treatment, but they didn’t
bother to thoroughly research the country’s existing coffee culture. According to The
Jerusalem Post:

“In Israel, Italian cafe offerings like espresso and macchiato coexist with strong,
flavorful Turkish coffee made simply by brewing coffee grinds in hot water and
letting them settle into “mud” at the bottom of the cup. It’s rare to see a standard
American filter coffee — in my experience it tastes like weakly flavored hot water.”

Of course, not ALL of the coffee in Israel is superior. According to the TLVI.FM
podcast , when Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz visited Israel in 1998, he stayed at the
King David Hotel and was not impressed by the coffee the establishment provided him:

“That fateful cup of coffee. It was weak, flavorless, no better than hot dishwater.

After that, according to Amy Klein, an Israeli reporter who interviewed Schultz during his
trip:

“He was very interested in bringing the whole coffee culture to Israel and he
thought he could improve Israel’s coffee.”

Starbucks was successful in the US because they brought their version of “coffee
culture” to the masses, most of whom considered Folgers “the best part of waking up”
and left it at that. In Israel, there was already an existing cafe culture (although
expresso-based coffee drinks were relatively recent imports, and just starting to come
into their own in the early 90s). Starbucks failed to consider how they would fit into it.
And then, they refused to take the advice of the local entrepreneur they were working
with on how to adapt their product to meet local tastes. The result? The local
coffeehouse chains won out.

The moral of the story? Do your research first…and do it thoroughly!

McDonald’s in Bolivia: Sometimes Fries Just Aren’t Enough

McDonald’s is no stranger to international business. 2/3 of their total revenue comes from
outside their home base of the US. Still, they shut all of their Bolivian locations in 2002,
making Bolivia the only Latin American country with no Golden Arches.

So, what happened? Some stories claim that McDonald’s failed in Bolivia because
Bolivians don’t like unhealthy fast food. That’s not quite true. In fact, according to NPR:

This is not to say that Bolivians don’t like hamburgers. They love them, but they
prefer to buy them from the thousands of indigenous women selling on the streets
than from a global company.

McDonald’s is usually savvy about localizing their offerings, but the yellow glow of the
Golden Arches has become a symbol of the forces of globalization (and Americanization).
In this case, their brand may have worked against them.

Another factor was price. Why pay $3 a meal for often substandard fare when you can buy
from a local cook for a fraction of the price?

That said, McDonald’s tried to set up shop again in Bolivia last year, so we’ll have to see
how they do.

Walmart in Germany
Walmart is the world’s largest retailer. They’ve got stores in 28 countries, even China. So
why did they abandon Germany in 2006? There were a number of factors, of course.
According to Wikipedia:

The German market at this point was an oligopoly with high competition among
companies which used a similar low price strategy as Walmart. As a result,
Walmart’s low price strategy yielded no competitive advantage

But their downright creepy corporate culture probably didn’t help, either. Apparently,
Walmart employees start each shift doing group stretching exercises while loudly
chanting “Walmart! Walmart!” The Huffington Post suggests that this blatant corporate
brainwashing might have freaked out the Germans:

Maybe they found it embarrassing or silly; maybe they found it too regimented. Or
maybe they found this oddly aggressive, mindless and exuberant exercise in group-
think too reminiscent of other rallies….like one that occurred in Nuremberg several
decades earlier.

That last bit may be a bit of stretch (and a clear instance of Godwin’s law in action). But
their policies on smiling (all employees must smile) didn’t fare well with Germans, who
don’t typically fake-smile at strangers. And their 1984-ish “ethics code,” which required
employees to spy on each other and them from engaging in sexual relationships with
each other, was struck down by a German court in 2005.
And finally, Walmart failed to take the preferred habits of German consumers into
consideration when it designed its stores: making them stoop to reach discounted
products, making the store more difficult to navigate so that shoppers would spend more
time there, and just generally frustrating them. Americans are apparently content to
wander the aisles like rats in maze of cheap products from China. Not so the Germans.
Takeaway: Successfully expanding into another country is about more than offering the
right product at the right price. Consider how your company’s policies and practices will
fit into the local culture…and adjust them accordingly.

Thinking of doing business in another country? As you can see, fitting into the local
culture is vital. Translation is a huge part of that, and you need to go with a company you
can trust.

For more info on what could go wrong and how to get it right, see 7 International Marketing
Campaigns that Failed to Translate, our Culture Guide for Businesses Expanding
Internationally and our Guide for Small Businesses Expanding Internationally.
Need help? Our translation and transcreation services can help you communicate seamlessly
with customers around the world.

It never ceases to amaze me how much time people waste searching endlessly for magic shortcuts to
entrepreneurial success and fulfillment when the only real path is staring them right in the face: real
entrepreneurs who start real businesses that employ real people who provide real products and
services to real customers.
Yes, I know that’s hard. It's a lot of work. What can I say, that’s life. Besides, look on the bright side:
You get to do what you want and you get to do it your way. There’s just one catch. You’ve got to start
somewhere. Ideas and opportunities don’t just materialize out of thin air.

The only way I know to get started is by learning a marketable skill and getting to work. In my
experience, that’s where the ideas, opportunities, partners, and finances always seem to come from.
Sure, it also takes an enormous amount of hard work, but that just comes with the territory.

If you want to do entrepreneurship right, here are eight stories you’ve probably never heard about
companies you’ve most definitely heard of.

The Pierre Omidyar way. In 1995, a computer programmer started auctioning off stuff on his
personal website. AuctionWeb, as it was then known, was really just a personal project, but, when the
amount of web traffic made it necessary to upgrade to a business Internet account, Omidyar had to
start charging people fees. He actually hired his first employee to handle all the payment checks. The
site is now known as eBay.

Related: How to Be Smarter

The John Ferolito and Don Vultaggio way. Back in the 70s, a couple of Brooklyn friends started a
beer distributor out of the back of an old VW bus. Two decades later, after seeing how well Snapple
was doing they decided to try their hand at soft drinks and launched AriZona Green Tea. Today,
AriZona teas are #1 in America and distributed worldwide. The friends still own the company.

The Matt Maloney and Mike Evans way. When a couple of Chicago software developers working
on lookup searches for Apartments.com got sick of calling restaurants in search of takeout food for
dinner, the light bulb went off: Why isn’t there a one-stop shop for food delivery? That’s when the
pair decided to start GrubHub, which went public last April and is now valued at more than $3
billion.

The Joe Coulombe way. After operating a small chain of convenience stores in southern California,
Joe Coulombe had an idea: that upwardly mobile college grads might want something better than 7-
11. So he opened a tropical-themed market in Pasadena, stocked it with good wine and booze, hired
good people, and paid them well. He added more locations near universities, then healthy foods, and
that’s how Trader Joe’s got started.

Related: Success Does Not Follow a Time Clock

The Howard Schultz way. A trip to Milan gave a young marketer working for a Seattle coffee bean
roaster an idea for upscale espresso cafes like they have all over Italy. His employer had no interest in
owning coffee shops but agreed to finance Schultz’s endeavor. They even sold him their brand name,
Starbucks.

The Phil Robertson way. There was a guy who so loved duck hunting that he chose that over
playing pro football for the NFL. He invented a duck call, started a company called Duck
Commander, eventually put his son Willy in charge, and that spawned a media and merchandising
empire for a family of rednecks known as Duck Dynasty.
The Konosuke Matsushita way. In Japan in 1917, a 23-year-old apprentice at the Osaka Electric
Light Company with no formal education came up with an improved light socket. His boss wasn’t
interested so young Matsushita started making samples in his basement. He later expanded with
battery-powered bicycle lamps and other electronic products. Matsushita Electric, as it was known
until 2008 when the company officially changed its name to Panasonic, is now worth $66 billion.

The Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs way. While they had been friends since high school, the two
college dropouts gained considerable exposure to the computer world while working on game
software together on the night shift at Atari. The third Apple founder, Ron Wayne, was also an Atari
alumnus.

As I always say, the world is full of infinite possibilities and countless opportunities, but your life and
career are finite, meaning you have limited time to find what you’re searching for and make your
mark on the world. This is your time. It’s limited so don’t waste it. Find something you like to do and
just do it. That’s how real entrepreneurs always start.

6 Stories of Super Successes Who Overcame Failure

Jayson DeMers - VIP CONTRIBUTOR

Failure is not the alternative to success. It’s something to be avoided, but it’s also only a
temporary setback on a bigger, more significant course. Everybody encounters failure at one
point or another. What truly matters is how you react to and learn from that failure.

Take the stories of these six entrepreneurs. Their stories end in massive success, but all of them
are rooted in failure. They’re perfect examples of why failure should never stop you from
following your vision.

1. Arianna Huffington got rejected by 36

publishers.
It’s hard to believe that one of the most recognizable names in online publications was once
rejected by three dozen major publishers. Huffington’s second book, which she tried to publish
long before she created the now ubiquitously recognizable Huffington Post empire, was rejected
36 times before it was eventually accepted for publication.

Related: Barbara Corcoran: Failure Is My Specialty

Even Huffington Post itself wasn’t a success right away. In fact, when it launched, there were
dozens of highly negative reviews about its quality and its potential. Obviously, Huffington
overcame those initial bouts of failure and has cemented her name as one of the most successful
outlets on the web.
2. Bill Gates watched his first company
crumble.
Bill Gates is now one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, but he didn’t earn his fortune in a
straight line to success. Gates entered the entrepreneurial scene with a company called Traf-O-
Data, which aimed to process and analyze the data from traffic tapes (think of it like an early
version of big data).

He tried to sell the idea alongside his business partner, Paul Allen, but the product barely even
worked. It was a complete disaster. However, the failure did not hold Gates back from exploring
new opportunities, and a few years later, he created his first Microsoft product, and forged a new
path to success.

3. George Steinbrenner bankrupted a team.

Before Steinbrenner made a name for himself when he acquired ownership of the New York
Yankees, he owned a small basketball team called the Cleveland Pipers back in 1960. By 1962,
as a result of Steinbrenner’s direction, the entire franchise went bankrupt.

That stretch of failure seemed to follow Steinbrenner when he took over the Yankees in the
1970s, as the team struggled with a number of setbacks and losses throughout the 1980s and
1990s. However, despite public fear and criticism of Steinbrenner’s controversial decisions,
eventually he led the team to an amazing comeback, with six World Series entries between 1996
and 2003, and a record as one of the most profitable teams in Major League Baseball.

Related: To Manage Innovation, Manage Failure Better

4. Walt Disney was told he lacked creativity.

One of the most creative geniuses of the 20th century was once fired from a newspaper because
he was told he lacked creativity. Trying to persevere, Disney formed his first animation company,
which was called Laugh-O-Gram Films. He raised $15,000 for the company but eventually was
forced to close Laugh-O-Gram, following the close of an important distributor partner.

Desperate and out of money, Disney found his way to Hollywood and faced even more criticism
and failure until finally, his first few classic films started to skyrocket in popularity.

5. Steve Jobs was booted from his own

company.
Steve Jobs is an impressive entrepreneur because of his boundless innovations, but also because
of his emphatic comeback from an almost irrecoverable failure. Jobs found success in his 20s
when Apple became a massive empire, but when he was 30, Apple’s board of directors decided
to fire him.

Undaunted by the failure, Jobs founded a new company, NeXT, which was eventually acquired
by Apple. Once back at Apple, Jobs proved his capacity for greatness by reinventing the
company’s image and taking the Apple brand to new heights.

6. Milton Hershey started three candy

companies before Hershey's.
Everyone knows Hershey’s chocolate, but when Milton Hershey first started his candy
production career, he was a nobody. After being fired from an apprenticeship with a printer,
Hershey started three separate candy-related ventures, and was forced to watch all of them fail.

In one last attempt, Hershey founded the Lancaster Caramel Company, and started seeing
enormous results. Believing in his vision for milk chocolate for the masses, he eventually
founded the Hershey Company and became one of the most well-known names in the industry.

Draw inspiration from these stories the next time you experience failure, no matter the scale. In
the moment, some failure might seem like the end of the road, but remember, there are countless
successful men and women in the world today who are only enjoying success because they
decided to push past the inevitable bleakness of failure.

Learn from your mistakes, reflect and accept the failure, but revisit your passion and keep
pursuing your goals no matter what.

. Walt Disney Inc.

In the year 1921, Mr. Walt Disney established his maiden animation company in Kansas
City. He signed an agreement with a distribution company for shipping his cartoons to
them and would receive payments after 6 months. But the company dumped him at the
last moment. But he did not lose hope and toiled hard to make Walt Disney Inc one of
the best animation companies in the world.

2. Heinz

Henry J Heinz started the company in association with some of his friends in the year
1989. They launched the brand by selling horseradish sauce in clear bottles but the
company failed to sustain in the market and faced bankruptcy the year 1973. But again
in 1919, Henry relaunched the brand with his cousins by selling consumer products like
ketchup, baked beans, and pickles. This time, he was successful in his endeavor in
establishing the brand in the global market.

3. Google
It is quite hard to believe that Google was a struggling firm in its initial days. But it
finally tested success in the year 2003 by launching the Google Adwords program and
was successful in earning $21 billion by the year 2008. Thereafter there was no looking
back. Presently it is one of the most profits making company worldwide.

4. Apple
“Failure is the pillar of success”. This proverb was proved correct by the IT giant Apple.
During 1990’s the company faced multiple failures. But with the launch of products like
iPod and iMac it became successful in establishing itself as a renowned brand in the
world.

5. Ford
Initially, Ford operated with the brand name Detroit Automobile Company. But in 1901,
the company faced bankruptcy. The company made several attempts to regain its lost
glory. The brand was finally revived by some angel investors and renamed it as Ford
Motor Co.

From these success stories we can conclude that with continuous effort and patience,
anybody can achieve success in life.

What does it take to start up? A brilliant idea? A great team? Money? Yes. All of those
things. But more than anything what it takes, is belief. A belief that there is significance
to the problem being addressed, and that the solution is something which the consumer
wants. It is really amazing how most large companies have such humble stories of
starting up. All of them started with nothing but just plain conviction. Here we have
compiled for you four short stories of starting up of (now) famous companies:

1. Fred Smith | Federal Express

Fred Smith was an undergraduate at Yale University in 1965. As part of the coursework,
he wrote an economics paper exploring the process of transportation of goods in the
United States. He found that the shippers relied on transporting large packages across
the United States by means of truck or passenger airplanes. Smith thought of a more
efficient transportation idea. He wrote a last minute paper on how a company carrying
small, essential items by plane could be a much better business. He, however, did not
go into details about how to actually run such a company. His paper was graded “C”.
But Smith did not give up on the idea and launched the company in 1971.

But within three years of the founding of the company, Federal Express was on the
verge of bankruptcy. It was losing over $1 million a month, due to the rising fuel
costs. At its zenith, the company had just $5000 to its name. Smith made a final pitch to
General Dynamics for more funding. The request was turned down.

Most ordinary people would have quit at this point and shut down the company. Not
Fred Smith. What he did next is easily the boldest move by the founder of a company.
Smith flew to Las Vegas and played Black Jack that weekend with the remaining
company funds. Yes, all of the $5000. On Monday, the management of the company
had a pleasant surprise lined up. FedEx had $32,000 in its bank account, which was
just enough to cover the fuel for their planes and to continue operating a few days more.

Soon after, the company was able to raise significant amounts in funding. Today FedEx
is a global giant with operations in more than 220 countries and territories and an
annual revenue of US $45 billion.

2. Ferrucio Lamborghini | Lamborghini

Ferrucio was originally a farmer who made tractors. His business was very successful
and he was among the most wealthy in Italy. He owned Ferrari among other super cars.
The Ferrari used to give him constant trouble. Being a mechanic, he tried to fix the
problem and found out that his Ferrari had the same clutch as used in one of his
tractors.

“All my Ferraris had clutch problems. When you drove normally, everything was fine.
But when you were going hard, the clutch would slip under acceleration; it just wasn’t up
to the job.”

Ferrucio went to the service guys regularly to have a clutch rebuilt or renewed, and
every time, the car was taken away for several hours and he was not allowed to watch it
being repaired. The problem with the clutch was never cured, so Ferrucio decided to
talk to Enzo Ferrari. He had to wait for him a very long time.
‘Ferrari, your cars are rubbish!’ Ferrucio complained. Il Commendatore was furious.
“Lamborghini, you may be able to drive a tractor but you will never be able to handle a
Ferrari Properly.’ This was the point when he finally decided to make a perfect car. Yes,
Lamborghini.

3. Colonel Sanders | Kentucky Fried Chicken

At 65 years of age, Colonel Sanders received his first social security cheque of $99. He
was broke, owned a small house and a beat up car.He made a decision that things had
to change. His friends used to like his chicken recipe very much. The fact that this was
the only novel idea he had, he decided to act upon it.

He left Kentucky and started his travels to different US states to sell his idea. He would
tell restaurant owners that he had a chicken recipe which people liked and he was ready
to give it to them for free, in return for a small percentage on the items sold. He got
rejections after rejections, but did not give up. In fact, he got over 1000 rejections.

He got 1009 NO’s before he got his first Yes. With that one success Colonel Hartland
Sanders changed the eating habits of the whole world with Kentucky Fried Chicken,
popularly known as KFC.

4. Soichiro Honda | Honda Motor Co.

Soichiro Honda was a mechanic at a garage. His job was to tune cars to prepare them
for races. Honda founded Tōkai Seiki, a piston rings manufacturing company in 1937.

This company won a contract to supply piston rings to an established automobile

company – Toyota. But soon after, he lost the contract due to the poor quality of the
products. He took time out to better understand Toyota’s quality control processes, and
by 1941, Honda was able to mass produce piston rings acceptable to Toyota.

Toyota took a 40% stake in his company, but Honda was demoted from president to
senior managing director. Tōkai Seiki’s manufacturing plants were destroyed in US
bomb attacks in 1944. Honda sold the salvageable remains of the company to Toyota
and used the proceeds to found the Honda Technical Research Institute in October
1946.

He worked with a staff of 12 men in a 172-square-foot shack. They built and sold
improvised motorized bicycles by building their own copy of Tohatsu engines, and
supplying these to customers to attach to their bicycles. Honda Motor Company grew in
a short time to become the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles by 1964.
Honda thereafter entered into mini pick-up trucks & finally into the car segment and
today is a serious competitor to Toyota.

It’s easy to look at these companies and think, “I could never do something like
this.” Of course, all of these companies took decades to get where they are
today. But they had an idea and they believed in it and most importantly, they
started.
You would also like this amazing infographic from Funders and Founders on “How Many
Times Should You Try?” before you taste success
When a business has the most humble of beginnings, a low budget, and its
’headquarters’ is located oh-so-proudly in a garage, we call it ’a garage start-up.’
Surprisingly enough, many of the biggest multinational corporations, music bands,
and other incredibly successful businesses were started just like that —
in someone’s garage by a group of truly dedicated enthusiasts.
We here at Bright Side have compared the success stories of some of the most well-
known companies, and we came to a conclusion: they all once started with nothing,
so it seems clear that success has nothing to do with the amount of money that
is invested in a business. It’s all about the idea, dedication, and courage.

Amazon
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At the dawn of the Internet era, back in 1994, Jeff Bezos founded his very own online
bookstore. At the time, the main office was located in his garage, and an old door
served as his desk. Today, Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer. Its founder,
Jeff Bezos, also owns a privately funded aerospace manufacturing and spaceflight
services company named Blue Origin. One of the launch sites of Blue Origin is based
right on Bezos’s privately owned land in Texas.

Apple
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Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak assembled their very first computers by hand in the
garage of the Jobs family. In 2017, Apple will finish the construction of its new
headquarters — a futuristic four-story building will be set in a 2.8 million-square-foot
area accommodating 13,000 employees.

Disney
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Roy and Walt Disney filmed their first animated movie in their uncle’s one-car garage.
Today, The Walt Disney Company is the highest-grossing media conglomerate in the
world that produces movies and owns theme parks and TV channels.

Hewlett-Packard
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The company was first designed as a manufacturer of some sort of measuring
equipment in Packard’s garage, with an initial investment of $538. One of the first
customers of Hewlett-Packard was the former garage start-up The Walt Disney
Company. Currently, Hewlett-Packard is among the best-known computer equipment
manufacturers in the world.

Google
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The world’s largest search engine was once a research project of two Stanford
graduates. Today, Google is represented in numerous areas of scientific work and
emerging technologies, such as unmanned vehicles, augmented reality, early disease
detection, and wireless Internet.

Harley-Davidson
© totalmotorcycle.com © Vaughn R. Larson
William S. Harley and his childhood friend Arthur Davidson used to carry out
experiments with their bicycle in a woodshed. The boys attempted to attach
a miniature engine to an ordinary bicycle. Thus, they came up with their very first
motor-bicycle. Little did the young enthusiasts know that their future product was
going to become the world’s most iconic motorcycle ever.

The Beatles
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The Quarrymen, the first rock band formed by John Lennon, was rehearsing
in a garage and giving live performances at small public events. Soon after John
Lennon was introduced to Paul McCartney, The Quarrymen’s leader invited
McCartney to join the group. In 1960, The Quarrymen evolved into The Beatles.

Microsoft
© windows.microsoft.com © arquitectonica.com
There were times when the Microsoft team consisted of only three employees,
including the co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Today more than 120,000 people
work for the famous multinational company. Bill Gates topped the US wealth list and
has been named the world’s richest person by Forbes several times.

Patagonia
© Patagonia Archive © coolerlifestyle.com
Yvon Chouinard has been crazy about climbing since he was 14. His family couldn’t
afford the necessary equipment, so the boy turned his parents’ garage into
a blacksmith shop where he began to make his own equipment, such as reusable
pitons. Forty years later, his company, named Patagonia, still produces high-quality
equipment for customers from all over the world.

Yankee Candle
© businesswest.com © wikimedia
A 14-year-old boy, whose name was Michael Kittredge, made his first scented candle
out of melted crayons as a gift for his parents. The neighbors took notice and
expressed their interest in buying his handmade candles. Today, the Yankee Candle
Company sells scented candles and other souvenirs in more than 50 countries
worldwide. The first Yankee Candle shop has been transformed into a mini museum.

Lotus Cars
© piximus.net © Natursports/shutterstock.com
The founder of Lotus Cars had begun manufacturing his first racing cars in his
parents’ garage. Later on, the production line was moved into old stables. So far, the
Lotus Team has won the Formula One World Championship seven times.

Mattel
© Manufacturing History © Paolo Bona/shutterstock.com
In 1945, a couple founded a company that manufactured photo frames. A couple
of years later, the very same couple introduced a new doll, named after their
daughter — Barbie. It made Mattel one of the biggest toy-producing companies in the
world.

Nike
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An athletic student and his coach co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports, a small company
that initially operated as a distributor for a Japanese shoe brand. Blue Ribbon Sports
officially became Nike Inc. in 1971. So it really is ’Just do it,’ isn’t it?
Failure is not the alternative to success, it is to be avoided. Everybody encounters failure
at one point or another though. What truly matters is how you react to and learn from it.

Take the stories of these six entrepreneurs. Their stories end with success, but these
successes are rooted in failure and learning from said failure.

1. Arianna Huffington got rejected by 36 publishers.

It’s hard to believe that one of the most recognizable names in online publications was
once rejected by three dozen major publishers. Huffington’s second book, which she tried
to publish long before she created the now ubiquitously recognizable Huffington Post
empire, was rejected 36 times before it was eventually accepted for publication.

Even Huffington Post itself wasn’t a success right away. In fact, when it launched, there
were tons of negative reviews and doubts about the website’s potential. But Huffington
has since developed in into a largely credible website.

2. Bill Gates watched his first company crumble.

Bill Gates is now one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, but he didn’t earn his fortune
in an instant. Gates entered the entrepreneurial scene with a company called Traf-O-Data,
which aimed to process and analyze the data from traffic tapes (think of it like an early
version of big data).

He tried to sell the idea alongside his business partner, Paul Allen, but the product barely
even worked. However, the failure did not hold Gates back from exploring new
opportunities, and a few years later, he created his first Microsoft product, and finally
found a way to success.
3. George Steinbrenner bankrupted a team.
Before Steinbrenner made a name for himself when he acquired ownership of the New
York Yankees, he owned a small basketball team called the Cleveland Pipers back in
1960. By 1962, Steinbrenner led the entire franchise into bankruptcy.

That seemed to be something that would happen when he took over the Yankees in the
1970s, as the team struggled with a number of setbacks and losses throughout the 1980s
and 1990s. However, despite public fear and criticism of Steinbrenner’s controversial
decisions, eventually he led the team to an amazing comeback, with six World Series
entries between 1996 and 2003, and a record as one of the most profitable teams in Major
League Baseball.

4. Walt Disney was told he lacked creativity.

One of the most creative individuals of the 20th century was once fired from a newspaper
because he was told he lacked creativity. Trying to persevere, Disney formed his first
animation company, which was called Laugh-O-Gram Films. He raised $15,000 for the
company but eventually was forced to close Laugh-O-Gram, following the close of an
important distributor partner.

Desperate and out of money, Disney found his way to Hollywood and faced even failure
until his first animation film found success.

5. Steve Jobs was booted from his own company.

Steve Jobs is an impressive entrepreneur but also experienced recovery from a major
failure. Jobs found success in his 20s with Apple becoming an empire, but was fired by
the board of directors in his 30s.

Undaunted by the failure, Jobs founded a new company, NeXT, which was eventually
acquired by Apple. Once back at Apple, he proved his ability as he helped to make the
company reemerge as a major force in the industry.

6. Milton Hershey started three candy companies before Hershey’s.

When Milton Hershey first started his candy production career, he was a nobody. He
started three separate candy-related ventures, all of which failed.

In one last attempt, Hershey founded the Lancaster Caramel Company. As he started to
see enormous results, he built on his vision for a brand of chocolate for the masses and
started Hershey’s.

Be inspired by these failures next time success seems to be out of reach. Just remember
there are countless men and women like the above example who overcame unimaginable
failure to write a legacy of astonishing success.

Learn from your mistakes and failures but never abandon your passions, visions, and
goals.