For every Miracle Mop, Bombas sock or Squatty Potty, there’s a Plushky. What’s a Plushky? It’s a
stuffed, colorful plushie shaped like a country. For six years, from 2010 to 2016, then Austin-based
entrepreneur Ricardo Jiménez engaged in a relentless pursuit to find the market, customers,
distributors, investors, partners and sellers that would make his line of Plushkies the next big thing.
Given these cuddly plush stuffed toys can’t be found on shelves of any major retailers or on any
online marketplace, we already know the ending of this story. Jiménez failed in his efforts to get
others to see his vision that these toys would bring the children of the world together. But not every
entrepreneur can be a Joy Mangano, Dave Heath or Bobby and Judy Edwards. In fact, nine times
out of ten, entrepreneurs fail.
But is it truly the ending of his story or his Plushkies? In his new book, CRASH COURSE: A
Founder’s Journey to Saving Your Startup and Sanity (Forefront Books; June 18, 2024), Jiménez
shares what it’s like to pour your heart, your passion and your financial resources into a dream and
vision that few others see. And, most excruciatingly, fail at it.
“There are enough stories about entrepreneurs who lived their American dreams, but what about
those of us who put ourselves on the line, worked endless hours, did everything we could to give
our companies life, and still faltered and lost our money without ever creating a true profitable
enterprise? That’s not a story people usually want to hear, but I am convinced it’s
important—maybe even more important than endlessly studying Cinderella-like success stories”
says Jimenez.
Have we been given a how-to on what it’s like to fail at a start-up? In CRASH COURSE, Jiménez
asks: Can failure inform a different narrative of accomplishment, as opposed to success by
mainstream measures?
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