Entrepreneur

How One Entrepreneur Survived Five Years of Errors

Only now is this company poised to make money.
Cyrus Schenck atop Stowe Mountain Resort.

In 2011, my five pals and I were driving home from one of our weekend ski trips in Vermont. We were engineering students at the time and used to throw out all kinds of ideas during those three-hour drives. On this one day, my friend Donny suggested building skis that were based on engineering principles and thus unequivocally better. We loved the challenge. Surely we could build a better ski.

Related: How This Company Bounced Back After a Toxic Hire

During my material sciences class, I learned about a rare class of soft. I also had a side business washing residential windows, and every dime I earned went toward building . One of my clients had some business experience and was curious about my friends -- what do they do, exactly? I explained that they’d launched the brand with me. “But what do they do now?” he asked.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur3 min read
Making the Midlife Leap
Sometimes, building the life you want requires a big risk. That’s what Keri Gardner realized when she cashed in $100,000 of her retirement savings to buy a franchise. It was November 2020, and she had just been laid off from her executive role at a h
Entrepreneur5 min readCorporate Finance
How to Build the Next Huge Thing
Want to start, fund, and sell a major company? Spencer Rascoff has some advice on that—because he’s seen it from all sides. As a founder, he first cofounded the travel-booking site Hotwire, which he sold to Expedia. He then cofounded Zillow, which he
Entrepreneur9 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
15 Side Hustles You Never Knew Existed
If you don’t get squirmy around creepy-crawlies, try breeding insects! Crickets, Dubia roaches, and mealworms are all easy to cultivate, and lizard-owners never stop needing to feed their reptiles. Jeff Neal learned this in 2016, when he bought his d

Related Books & Audiobooks