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. 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?  In his book, Jiménez offers advice on how to:·        Learn the most valuable information first. What do your customers want? What are they willing to pay? How are they going to use the product?·        Know your motives before you leap. Are you doing this for yourself or others? What is the number one driver of your decision to start a business?·        Trust yourself. Follow your heart and do not fear the outcome, he says. You are bigger than your company or your enterprise. Life comes first, business second. ·        Learn when to let go. He shares the spiritual journey he took that led him to understand that sometimes the best thing to do is to let go.