The ability to stick it out

Earlier this week I gave a tour at the Atlanta Tech Village, which I love doing and always come away inspired from. On the tour I took my guess to meet three different start-ups in the building. The guests loved the interactions and came away incredibly excited and energized from getting to spend time with these entrepreneurs.

Each of these successful start-up CEOs have something that I think is a prerequisite of start-up success. The ability to stick it out. Each of them has pivoted their company more than one time and have found ways to keep the company going when things were tough. As I think back to my journey, there were many times when I should have shut my companies down from pure X’s and O’s standpoint, but somehow we were able to push through and find a way to make the company successful.

When I do get back to investing in new start-ups – right now every ounce of my focus is on making Dragon Army an amazing company – I know the first thing that I will ask the CEOs that I am thinking of backing: will you be able to stick it out with this company until the very end? Will you put every ounce of your ability into keeping this business alive when the going gets tough, because it will?

To give yourself a shot, you have to be able to answer “yes” to those questions.