In 1974, a young Professor of architecture in Budapest named Erno Rubik created an object that was not supposed to be possible. His solid cube twisted and turned and still it did not break or fall apart. With colorful stickers on its sides, the Cube got scrambled and thus emerged the first “Rubik’s Cube”. It took well over a month for Erno to work out the solution to his puzzle. Little did he expect that Rubik’s Cube would become the world’s best-selling toy ever. As a teacher, Erno was always looking for new, more exciting ways to present information, so he used the Cube’s first model to help him explain to his students about spatial relationships. Erno has always thought of the Cube primarily as an object of art, a mobile sculpture symbolizing stark contrasts of the human condition, bewildering problems and triumphant intelligence, simplicity and complexity, stability and dynamism, order and chaos.

The beauty of the Rubik’s Cube is that when you look at a scrambled one, you know exactly what you need to do without instruction. Yet, without instruction it is almost impossible to solve, making it one of the most infuriating and engaging inventions ever conceived.

New, inexperienced founders find themselves in a situation that very much resembles the task of trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. The difference is that in the business world, time is running out and pressure, stress and anxiety builds up rapidly. Trying to figure out the business model, the brand identity with a strategy for market insertion, developing your product or service, how to find an investment, researching, testing and finally the most daunting; pitching to investors.

The probability of a startup achieving success from the first try is the same as a person trying to solve the Rubik’s cube from the first attempt. And even if the cube is somehow solved from the first attempt then someone or something will mess it up in the future. If a person gives up on trying to figure out the cube the same way an entrepreneur gives up on trying to figure out his idea, then perhaps the entrepreneur was not meant to have this idea in the first place and surely someone else with more perseverance will execute it.

“If you are curious, you’ll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.” Erno Rubik

Have you given up solving the Rubik’s Cube of your venture? Or worse, have you ended up changing or abandoning altogether your idea because it was too hard to figure out the way to execute it?