I am sure you all know who W.E. Hickson is. Sure you do. He was the 19th-century poet who famously said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
When University of California San Diego Ph.D. candidate Raj Krishnan first entered the UCSD Entrepreneur Challenge business plan competition, he didn’t make the cut. No cigar. No cash.

But Krishnan and the Biological Dynamics team did not give up. They got help from advisers at UCSD’s von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement, and they revised their business plan based on what they had learned at the various Entrepreneur Challenge educational events. The key concept here is the word “revised.”
The result: In 2009, his startup Biological Dynamics went from half-baked to Iron Chef status, and his team won the grand prize of $40,000 in cash and services.
Read more on SignOnSanDiego.com.