Venture capitalist Luke Cooper wants entrepreneurs to change their perspective on failure.

During the “Dope Thinkers Only Conference” held Sept. 11–12 at Grambling State University, in Louisiana, Cooper said he was born into failure. His father was already in jail when he was born to a mother who was 16. He had been used to moving around often to survive, which built his resilience and grit as an entrepreneur and investor.

Cooper overcame the odds, attended Syracuse University College of Law, and became a mergers and acquisitions lawyer. In his early 20s, he completed over $250 million in transactions from real estate, company acquisitions, and more before transitioning to technology entrepreneurship. This was when he launched a cybersecurity company, which sold for $60 million. Another brainchild was Fixt, a “SaaS-based mobile device repair web and mobile app that takes the hassle out of troubleshooting mobile device issues,” as AFROTECH™ previously told you. Cooper described the company that launched in 2013 as the “Uber for mobile devices” and its clientele included Home Depot, AT&T, Coca-Cola, the New York Police Department, and more. According to the AFRO, Cooper hit a glass ceiling after achieving 300% year-over-year growth and securing $6.5 million in capital.

“That’s still a record in the state of Maryland. No Black person has raised more than me,” Cooper said during a virtual panel held during the “Dope Thinkers Only Conference.”

Assurant, a Fortune 500 risk management company, later bought Fixt for 11 times its revenue. Cooper made the acquisition possible by taking a one-way Southwest flight to Las Vegas when his company was just three months from zero cash flow. He snuck into an Assurant VIP reception and beelined to then-CEO Alan Colberg to pitch the company. It took six months for a deal to close, and now Fixt Inc. generates nearly $500 million for Assurant.

Alongside Cooper’s wins, another chapter underscores the importance of not clinging too tightly to success or failure. Between his first cybersecurity company and Fixt, he purchased a business but was unsuccessful in turning it around. He had to file for bankruptcy while his wife was seven months pregnant with their son. Yet, Cooper realized life was not over because of that decision.

“I looked around, and people were just milling about, people just moving about their normal day. They had no relationship to us. They didn’t give a sh-t about anything related to us… I didn’t go to jail,” he recalled. “There was no big anvil that came out of the air and fell on me… A lot of times, these things are in your mind. They’re in your mind that failure is going to kill you, but it’s not. It’s going to make you stronger, it’s going to make you better, it’s going to make you even more successful than you ever dreamed.”

By refusing to attach himself to failure, Cooper was able to move into his next season as the founder of Fixt, a venture that still came with its own challenges. Today, Cooper is the CEO and managing partner at Latimer Ventures, a Baltimore-based early-stage venture capital fund launched to support underrepresented founders, as AFROTECH™ previously told you.

“We’ve chosen not to go down the corporate path. And by choosing not to go down the corporate path means that that thing you’re working has to be successful, [and] has to produce enough money to take care of your family, your kids, and everybody else,” Cooper said at the conference. “You almost become intertwined with it. There’s something good about that, but there’s also something psychologically bad about that. What I mean by that is that as an entrepreneur, sometimes you’ve gotta separate the success of your company [and] the failure of your company from you.”