In my daily routine, I try to read (while filtering A LOT) about how other people, in a similar position (finances, time, experience) go about and have built successful businesses.
I happen to often come across a “success story” that is framed as a lesson in [insert business activity here]. There is a brief mention of when the company was founded, and then the narrative quickly skips to a lesson, insight, or an event that has been very successful. Usually, an amazing feat of conversion, success in getting on the first page of [insert big publication here], getting [insert huge number here] number of visitors, or sales after doing [insert viral stunt here].
That’s all fine, there are some lessons in there, how they went about it etc., but I always end up with a bittersweet taste, subconsciously comparing those results, with the results I currently have, even though the time frames of each are completely different.
We somehow skip the journey and put the tipping points of success on a pedestal, with no respect of what has gone into that (years of hard work) and what laid the foundations for that moment.
We somehow skip the journey and put the tipping points of success on a pedestal
“Founded in 2008…….in 2018 Company X made 100k in a day by ….”. Hold on a sec, what happened between 2008 and 2018? Surely there was a period of learning, testing, experimenting and failing, which is just as valuable to share, at least for contextual purposes.
As business owners and storytellers, we have a responsibility to respect and set expectations of what it actually takes to build a successful business. Anyone out there reading these types of stories, starting a business and not seeing similar results, in the beginning, will feel discouraged that he/she is not doing that well of a job. Even though that person might be doing a great job, but the timeline is completely different.
“Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle”
There are a few reasons that I am documenting my journey, some selfish, some not so much, but I can see that there is one aspect of it that can provide a clear perspective, on what it actually takes to build something. Hopefully, when I have my “big” moment, or moments, making it clear for someone, what has happened, as well as how much time and work it took in order to make that moment possible.
The small, mundane steps, failures and experiments are just as valuable in painting a realistic picture of success.
A good read and the inspiration behind these thoughts — Sumo’s 5 eCommerce Success Stories. Sure, there are some lessons in there, but reading it with the perspective of time and context in the back of one’s mind is even more valuable and insightful.
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This article was originally published on Medium and weardulo.com
It's the classic over night success story 10 years in the making.
👍I strongly feel the conversation about those 10 years needs to start getting louder, in order to set realistic expectations and encourage people to stick to their process and be patient and disciplined about building the life they want.
I also feel like it causes some sort of "silver bullet syndrome", where people will only try the thing they read about, without results. I recently heard about "survivorship bias"*, which could explain why these successes and their supposed cause are talked about so much.
If these success stories were repeatable in any way, the businesses would keep using the same tactics. There is a reason a "viral launch" generates a peak in traffic, instead of a huge permanent increase.
I'm much more interested in the things they do consistently, that keep growing the business. Unfortunately, that is mostly the boring stuff they feel isn't special.
*https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
Agree 100%. Plus, media outlets will always look for the "crescendo" moment that can create an interesting headline.
Yet, the game is in the day in, day out 🙂