Is the key to startup success perseverance? Have you ever wondered why that great company idea just died or faded away? Well, in most likelihood it was because they ran out of cash, enthusiasm or both. One thing I’ve mulled over recently was how important is persistence to the success of a company? I like to think of this as the story titled “Cinderella and The Power of Love err… no Perseverance”.
I’m not going to claim this is an academic exploration of this topic, rather, from the point of view of my own startup experience. I’ve seen ideas that everyone says they love, would buy if available. Once the idea launches, the reality dawns, actually converting the interest to sales is jolly hard. Now, much of this may be to do with basic execution i.e. find a product that people want, sell it to them at a price they are willing to pay when they are ready to buy it. Sure, glib, easy to say but hard to do in practice. It takes time to build up a base of customers. It probably costs money to find buyers in the first place followed by money to maintain that market and grow it.
If it isn’t all about money, is the key to startup success perseverance?
Sometimes, ideas just take a long time to bed in and for the addressable market to become clear to you as the entrepreneur. A tech startup that I worked for out of college (Virata) reinvented itself about three times over 5 years before it hit on a market that it could penetrate. Three pivots to find the nail for the hammer? Surely the smart founders of that company did all the research, created prototypes, technology spikes, market research etc. You know, all the things we are supposed to do before launching? Yet, they had to have three bites at the cherry. So, what am I claiming this was, luck? Perhaps, deep pockets (from the investors) – certainly. I’m claiming it is an example of persistence. So is the key to startup success perseverance?
Image All Rights Reserved D Gunawardena 2018
New ideas are hard to find accessible customers for. It takes time to find that foot that fits the shoe (you probably wondered where that Cinderella reference would come in). The idea may be arguably a good one but sometimes it just takes time. You learn a lot from the initial failures (to sell), not least in your enthusiasm/staying power and also that of your investors/employees. It perhaps helps us understand why it is often said that VCs are not investing in the idea but the team.
Let’s look for a couple more examples of persistence: PayPal started doing beaming of payments for PalmPilot PDAs (remember those?); Twitter started as the podcasting platform Odeo; Netflix started selling mail-order movies; IBM pivoted from selling mainframes to being primarily a service company. OK so just because a company pivots, it does not mean it has shown persistence but all of these examples are for companies that have been around perhaps a decade plus and have eventually found a market they can sell in successfully (hmm, well the jury is perhaps out on Twitter still 😉 ). It is worth looking at how many of those companies had some of the original founder DNA during this lifecycle – I posit a measure of persistence.
Not a slam dunk but an interesting theory… the idea is the start of the journey to success learning… perhaps persisting on the path will lead to success. What is guaranteed is your path will be different and that idea may lead to naught if you don’t persist. Food for thought and perhaps a few more blog articles!
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