What If I Fail?

Before I founded Eastern Pharmaceuticals, I had spent seven years working as a clinical biochemist, and two years researching the pharmaceuticals industry. I had also reviewed and rejected several other business ideas because they did not look like a good bet. Thus, I was very selective about my choice of a business, and that gave me great confidence. When I actually founded Eastern Pharmaceuticals, I was pursuing an MBA degree. One of my term papers on Entrepreneurship was based on the concept of Eastern Pharmaceuticals as a distributing company. My final project on Global Entrepreneurship Management (a capstone class on a comprehensive business plan) was based on Eastern Pharmaceuticals as a maker of generic medicines.

What if I was wrong and I did fail? I had my job to fall back to. For me it was important to balance the question of failure with its opposite: What if I was right about my business idea and I decided not to try? After a great deal of research and planning to select a business opportunity, I decided that the worst possible outcome of bootstrapping my own company was preferable to staying at my job. At that moment the risk of proceeding reached zero. I decided to go!

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