Perseverance furthers

Founder's Stories of Setbacks and Comebacks

Perseverance Furthers is a new book from founder, CEO, cybersecurity expert, and author Andrew Plato. This book chronicles founder’s stories of failure, recovery, and success. The goal is to inspire and educate new founders with stories from accomplished leaders.

This book is currently in production, interviews scheduling for Q1-2025. Publication is tentatively set for Q4-2025.

Premise

For new founders, every setback feels like the end of the world. However, failure is merely part of the normal process of building a great company.

Perseverance Furthers intends to:

Inspire founders with stories of struggle and success from accomplished startup leaders.
Educate entrepreneurs with creative strategies that may spark their own comeback.
Reassure founders that failure can build character, strength, resilience, and experience – all of which are vital to being a leader.

Who Can Contribute?

I am looking for founders and co-founders who:

Are currently or previously built a successful startup.
Willing to speak candidly about a previous setback that helped define you and/or your startup.
Able to discuss how this setback made you a better leader and/or person.
Have a desire to help new or young founders on their journey.
Are able to share information about the failure. I can anonymize people, technologies, or confidential details. However, your name will be associated with story.

What Should I Talk About?

A time when you made a mistake, error, or misjudgment and what you learned from that experience.

Some examples:

Product feature(s) you insisted on building, that did not work.
An executive you recruited, who turned out to be a bad hire.
A project that went south, due to your own bad decisions.
Technology decision you made that turned out to be a bad choice.
Business decision you made that ultimately hurt the company.
Investor you took money from that you regretted (these are always juicy stories!)
A startup you were involved with that failed (these are fantastic stories!)

Your stories should focus on professional or business failures. Of course, you can include personal failures, like a bad marriage or poor life choice, as long as the overall story is about building a startup.

Stories should require at least 1000 words to explain.

Sample Interview Questions

Here are some of the questions Andrew Plato will ask during the interview:

Tell me about a time you failed? What happened? What caused to the failure?
Who was involved with this failure?
What was the mistake, misjudgment, or misunderstanding you made?
What was the impact of this failure on you?
- On the company?
- On your employees?
- On your family?
Was this failure unavoidable?
What was the turning point or catalyst when you realized it was a failure?
How did you react to this failure?
What lessons did you learn from this failure?
How long did it take you to learn these lessons? Did you repeat the failure?
Imagine you can go back in time 10 or 20 years, what advice would you give your younger self?
Now, imagine your older self, 10 or 20 years from today just showed up in a time machine. What advice do you think your older self wants to give you now?

Why "Perseverance Furthers?"

This was a phrase my father said to me a lot while I was building my company. It was his way of reminding me (and himself) to keep going in the face of adversity. The answers I seek are out there, I just did not know them, yet. My father took this phrase from the I Ching an ancient book of Chinese wisdom.

Why Should Your Story of Failure Be In This Book?

To inspire the next generation of founders and innovators.

I believe failure is a normal, natural part of building anything – especially a startup. I also believe that to be an effective founder, you must not only learn from your failures but share those lessons openly. Sharing stories of failure demonstrates humility and willingness to learn. It also encourages others to embrace a growth mindset (as popularized from the book Mindset from Carol Dweck, PhD).

As a respected leader, your stories can inspire others. That mistake you made that may feel embarrassing may be exactly what a young founder needs to hear to give them the confidence to preserve.

As author, I will edit the content for brevity, clarity, and flow. However, I intend to tell your story as you want it expressed. Your story will start with a brief biography of your accomplishments. It will then transition into an interview style exchange. For the most part, I will use your words. I may edit your words slightly to make the content more readable.

Contributors will have an opportunity to review, edit, and approve content before it is published.

When the book is published, there will be opportunities to cross-promote the book and the founders featured in the book.