With startups, the runway is often more important than the plane

plane_not_enough_runway

Startups and new businesses take time. They often take much longer than the CEO every thought to reach any measure of success. And of course, a bad idea is still a bad idea no matter how much time is allotted for it, but a good idea often needs a great deal of time to realize its potential.

So imagine your startup is a plane – no matter what type of plane, in fact, you won’t even know what kind of plane it will end up being for quite some time – then the runway is the amount of time you create to allow your plane to finally take off.

I wrote about this recently when I talked about the most important job of the CEO of a startup is to make sure the company has enough runway. David has written about it before, most recently in yesterday’s post titled, How Long Do You Keep Grinding It Out? I hear this talked about constantly at the Atlanta Tech Village where over 180 startups are trying to beat the odds.

For my first company, Spunlogic, it took five years before we hit  $1 million in sales. For my second company, Engauge, it took us close to four years to really make progress. With Dragon Army, well, we’re nine months in and I have no idea how long it will take us to achieve success. We’re off to a great start, but there is a lot of work to be done.

Look no further than our industry, mobile gaming, to see what I’m talking about. Many people think Angry Birds was an immediate runaway success. However, what they don’t realize is that Rovio (creators of the game) created 51 games over six years before they stumbled upon Angry Birds.

So if you want to do one thing for your startup, create enough runway to give yourself a real shot.

10 Comments

  1. lance on May 5, 2014 at 2:28 pm

    And the length of the runway needed is based on the weight of the plane. Keep it capital light.



  2. Jeff Hilimire on May 5, 2014 at 2:30 pm

    Damn, people keep making my analogy better! Thanks @lance:disqus.



  3. […] been thinking (and blogging) a lot lately about the importance of extending the runway for startups. Giving a startup enough […]



  4. […] How long will you give yourself to make it happen? Lots of runway is required. […]



  5. […] As I answer this for Dragon Army, the answer seems obvious. And if you read this blog with any regularity you’ll know where I’m going with this. For Dragon Army, if we’re not successful it will only be because we ran out of time. For us, the runway is everything. […]



  6. […] a company you need to be ready to stick it out through the toughest of times. With a new company, its all about the runway, and if you can’t commit to being able to stick it out for the long haul, then think twice […]



  7. […] I found three gems too good not to share.  From Jeff Hilimire, CEO of Dragon Army, in “With startups, the runway is often more important than the plane“, the money quote: Rovio (creators of the game “Angry Birds”) created 51 games […]



  8. […] They run out of runway, or the idea was never strong enough to support a business. Or the leader was missing some key, required skills. […]



  9. […] They run out of runway, or the idea was never strong enough to support a business. Or the leader was missing some key, required skills. […]



  10. […] I found three gems too good not to share.  From Jeff Hilimire, CEO of Dragon Army, in “With startups, the runway is often more important than the plane“, the money […]



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