Shaping Israel’s next generation of entrepreneurs

Dr. Dan Marom, an expert on entrepreneurial finance, crowdfunding, impact investing, and other emerging funding mechanisms that democratize access to capital, says that failure is part of the growth process of entrepreneurs. “It’s not whether an entrepreneur will fail,” he points out. “It’s when they’ll fail. All entrepreneurs experience failures. The question is how long it will take them to rise up and start again. That’s what we’re trying to do – fail forward. It’s part of the journey.”

As both an entrepreneur and an academic, Marom has had extensive practical, hands-on experience in the field and says the most valuable lesson he has learned is how to learn from one’s failures. “Failing forward is about the fact that you can learn. It’s not a failure, but it’s a learning mechanism.” Entrepreneurship has a high failure rate because entrepreneurs are fighting the world, and the odds are stacked against them. “In all of the things that happen to us, I hope that we can perceive them as opportunities to learn and grow. If you fail, you fail forward, meaning that you’ve built something.”

Over the past two decades, Dr. Marom has built a career at the intersection of academic research, entrepreneurship, and strategic consultancy. He has served as a faculty member at the Hebrew University Business School since 2018, where he directs the Asper Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, developing interdisciplinary programs, fostering collaborations with industry and policy stakeholders, and designing experiential educational initiatives. His co-authored books, such as “The Crowdfunding Revolution” (McGraw-Hill, 2012) and “CrowdAsset” (World Scientific, 2020), helped frame global discourse on crowdfunding’s role in entrepreneurship and policy. 

Written in cooperation with Canadian Friends of Hebrew University.