Consider in the future adding one essential trait that is universal across any type of startup. It’s a trait that not many people have, but that every successful entrepreneur shares. I became convinced after a conversations with a friend who is a successful author (I founded an electronics company).
The trait? The ability to “just keep going.” You can count on tough times, even disasters, on the road to success. Most normal, well-adjusted people can only take so much pain and uncertainty before they toss in the towel. Our everyday experiences teach us to be practical about things, and to turn aside when something hurts or seems not to working. That’s why there are a thousand times as many aborted startups and unfinished books as there are successful ones. I’m probably understating that statistic, too.
Something has to make you keep going when most people would quit. In many cases, that “something” might be not even be an especially healthy source of motivation, but it has to be there. If you think you’ve detected a certain craziness or a common element of prior hardship in successful founders, you might be detecting the origin story of their ability to push through rejection, mistakes, and bad luck.
What will you do when a friend at a party laughs and says, “Oh yeah — haven’t you heard of Fimbulo? They’ve been doing exactly what you’re doing, and they just raised $14M of funding.” And that’s probably before your co-founder tells you he’s moving to New Zealand to start an organic health food brand and your car’s transmission conks out.
My friend who is an author has the usual stories of being rejected by publishing houses. And l o o o o o n g stretches of writer’s block and family distractions. And shitty, sarcastic reviews. But he kept going.
I had to do a complete recall of my first product. That same product later got copied — almost exactly — by the largest manufacturer in my space. They sent one of my units to China, had them reverse engineer it, and sold it for roughly half the price I was selling it for (I manufacture in Silicon Valley).
But I kept going.
Can you?