The 5 things you need to build something great
I gave a talk yesterday at an AMA event about 48in48, the nonprofit I co-founded with Adam in 2015. The talk was about the genesis of 48in48, but I started by going through my entrepreneurial journey and identifying the 5 things that, when present, allowed me to find success. And when any one of them was missing, I failed badly. I wrote them on a whiteboard throughout my talk (see above.)
#1 Passion
My first company, Spunlogic, was built on the passion that my partners and I had for building websites. We were consumed by the web (which was new-ish at the time.) And because of that passion, we were able to persevere and build a strong business over time.
To build anything great, you have to have passion for what you’re doing. It’s hard enough to achieve your dreams, but if you’re not fully passionate about it, you can pretty much forget it. More on passion.
#2 All in
It wasn’t until we were essentially forced to be “all in” with Spunlogic that we started having success. In the beginning, I was coaching tennis, Danny was waiting tables, and Raj was traveling. We were likely still putting in 80 hours a week on Spunlogic, but we weren’t putting in everything we could. Once we were forced to do that, everything changed.
If your goal is to build something great, you must be “all in”. That means, you can’t be working another job or distracted by other interests. You have to put every ounce of your energy into that thing, because the odds are already stacked heavily against you. To not give it your all is to reduce those odds even further.
#3 Focus
It wasn’t until we started focusing on User Experience at Spunlogic that we started to have success. Having that central theme for our company to rally around allowed us to coalesce into a single unit. From that point, we doubled our company for five straight years until we eventually sold the business in 2008.
Focusing – as an entrepreneur and as a company – is critical to being successful. More on focus.
#4 Partners / Co-founder
At Engauge, we did not have success the first few years because our leadership team was divisive, lacked trust, and was incredibly disorganized. We rectified that in 2010 and built a strong, 4-person leadership team that believed in each other and worked together toward a common goal. It was at that point that Engauge started to have success and which led to our eventual sale in 2013 to Publicis. At Spunlogic I always had a team like that, but I didn’t realize how important it was until I experienced the opposite in those early Engauge years.
I also believe you should consider a partner or co-founder when starting a business (or working on something very difficult.) Having someone in the trenches with you, who adds value where you might be deficient, is incredibly helpful and increases the odds of success. More on partners.
#5 Relationships / personal network
When Dragon Army pivoted to start the agency side of our business, it was on the strength of my personal network that allowed us to start landing clients immediately. As I look back, my success has largely been connected to the amount of time I spent building my network.
Your network and relationships can help you in anything that you do in life. More on networking and the power of relationships.
