Donald Trump’s Success through Failures
Love him or hate him, but you cannot ignore him.
For a man who has outstanding achievements to his name, Donald Trump is a brand to reckon with. And if success does always follow failure, he is a living example. Rumored to be worth $ 10,000,000,000 (yes, you read that right!), Trump has had many low moments in business.
In the recent past, he has been questioned time and again for continually failing to make sound business decisions.
"Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war" - Donald John Trump
Let’s have a look at some of his ‘Drumpf’ moments in business (The family surname of Trump was earlier Drumpf – it was changed to sound more appealing’:
1. Trump Airlines
1988 saw Trump change the airline industry when a 27 year old company Eastern Air Shuttle – a company that ran air shuttle services in the USA, was bought by him for $365 million dollars.
While Trump is credited to bring luxury airlines to people, the company never made any profit and that resulted in him making huge losses and failing to repay the borrowed loans.
The company was shut down in 1992.
2. Trump: The Board Game
If you have loved board games in your childhood, you would surely have heard of the name – Monopoly.
Trump launched a board game in 1989 with a very similar game play to Monopoly wherein players bought and negotiated deals on properties on the board, to make higher profits and ultimately win the game. The game didn’t do well and was pulled off shelves – a lot of blame being put on the game being ‘too complicated’ – selling far lesser than projected sales of 2 million sets.
Trump re-launched the game in 2005, with the name The Apprentice (riding on the popularity of his reality TV show), sadly that too did not take off and was discontinued.
3. Trump Casinos
Donald Trump set up a company called Trump Entertainment Resorts in 1995 which owned 3 casinos – Taj Mahal, the Trump Plaza and the Trump Marina- all of which were located in the Atlantic City. During the company’s bad times, Trump defended himself by distancing himself from the company, although the truth was that he owned 28% of the stock.
The company filed for bankruptcy multiple times. Reports clearly show that a lot of the loss occurred due to the legal clauses being shaped in favor of Trump.
4. Trump University
In the year 2005, Trump launched a university – Trump University. The university was set with the objective of making money and was never accredited. After facing multiple lawsuits, the name of the so called university was changed to The Trump Entrepreneurship Initiative in 2010. However, that too did not change the fortunes of this business, thus leading to a premature close in 2011. In 2013 sadly, he was sued for defrauding students!
5. Trump Vodka
In 2006, Trump launched his own vodka line called Trump Vodka. Launched as a premium vodka brand, it was expected to sell strong on the basis of the Trump brand name. Sadly in 2011, the company shut down. Though it was claimed that it was shut because Trump lost interest in the venture, the fact is that the company had a lot of problems right from the distillery to bottling to even finance since it was a half-baked idea.
6. Trump Mortgage
In 2006, Trump made a major blunder when he predicted that the real estate market in the
USA was going to remain strong for long – but actually, it was the year that saw the market deflating with every passing day. In 2006, the company did 1/3rd of the $3 billion business which its executives said it would do. While Trump did put the entire blame on the executives who ran the business, it couldn’t stop him from shutting the company in 2007.
7. Trump Magazine
Another fatal business decision in 2007 saw Donald Trump launch his magazine brand. His attempt was to re-brand previous publications called Trump Style and Trump World so that he could cash in on the booming advertisement market for uber high end commodities like yachts. Sadly, since it was the beginning of the economic slowdown, the magazines did not make it past 2009.
