# From the Stage: Experiential Capital
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From the stage "Innovators invest heavily in experiential capital." What is it? I put it simply on stage: "experiential capital is simply cumulative experience." The more you try, the more you learn, and the better positioned you are when the future arrives faster than expected. Innovators don't wait for the perfect plan. They run lots of small projects, knowing that "We might try a dozen things and one of them will work." But the other eleven aren't failures. They've built up the experience of a dozen teams, people or regions. Why it matters Most organizations measure only one kind of capital, the financial kind. But when something new arrives quickly, whether a technology, a competitor or a shift in what customers expect, the advantage goes to whoever has already been experimenting. You can't buy that experience the day you need it. As I said in the clip: "Organizations in the 21st century will succeed through the depth of their financial capital, but they will succeed as well in terms of how much experiential capital they build up." The takeaway Fund small experiments the way you'd fund an investment portfolio, expecting most to teach rather than win. Count what you learned, not just what worked. Think big, start small, scale fast. Experiential capital is the "start small" part. Related: Earlier: Experiential Capital (2009) · "We're going to think big, start small, and scale fast" — Experiential capital and the PGA (2011) · Experiential Capital — What it is, and Why You Need it! (2022) · Human Capital From the Stage is a weekday series of short clips from more than 30 years of keynotes, and the leadership lessons that still matter.

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Source: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/10/from-the-stage-experiential-capital/