I remember Julie Wainwright from the old days, the pre-dot-com bubble days. The sock puppet was pure marketing genius at the time. Then it flopped.

She’s back with her website called SmartNow. She has a fascinating blog entry about some of the mistakes she made at/after the time and what she’s learned.

People always say–well at least successful people frequently say–to learn from failures, and that success generally is the last step after a string of failures. Scott Adams of Dilbert fame says that the more spectacular the failure, the more attention you get, which can be good in its own right. Julie didn’t get that benefit. People laughed at her and she had to fight depression.

I’m not going to take anything away from Julie’s post. Go read it.