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In partnership with |  |
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Good morning Launch Key 🚀 community! |
This week we dig into the entrepreneurial long march toward success. |
We're programmed to want everything now – but everything worth doing takes more time than that. |
Stop 'thinking about' the business you'd like to start and get going. |
Because it's not going to happen overnight. |
Comment below and let me know if we're on the right track. |
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Table of Contents |
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Pull to Eject |
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Dopamine is a powerful drug. |
Instant gratification is sold to us on everything from weight loss pills to politicians. |
And we've been programmed to believe it. |
Social media influencers with overnight success. New players with millions of likes. Magic pills that melt off the excess pounds. |
It's all propaganda … or bots. |
The reality is that work worth doing – things that truly matter – take time. |
Starting a business, consulting, writing a book, creating a podcast, side hustles – nothing good scales immediately. |
It's more like two steps forward and one step back. |
Stops and starts Pivots Stupid mistakes Adaptation Struggle and success Evolution of your idea
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Survive and advance. |
Entrepreneurship is March Madness 🏀 – everyday. |
If you're old enough, you remember John Houseman's classic Smith Barney ads about making money the 'old fashioned way.' |
Clearly not instant gratification. |
 | Smith Barney commercial 1979 |
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15 year overnight success |
The Inc. article1 below claims 10 years, but my best business outcome took 15. |
When we finally reached terms to sell our software/services company we got the 2 things every entrepreneur dreams about: |
A high-multiple, strategic Fortune 500 acquirer All employees kept their jobs with better pay/benefits
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But it came with plenty of hard knocks. |
We zigged and zagged for a decade selling our software to large corporations. But each sale required unique coding to work with their systems. Software integration with legacy systems is rarely 'standardized.' |
The results were a marquee client list with one-off installations. Almost every sale required additional headcount for support. |
Programmers came on board excited to be part of a startup and left when their jobs became 'support.' Early 2000's programmers had cooler opportunities every week. We kept some excellent developers for extended periods, but intellectual churn can be deadly. |
Some large company sales took years to close. Onboarding new clients took months. Cash flow was jagged. |
Founders went without pay. We leveraged our homes. We had to bring in investors and luckily found willing friends and family. |
We needed to rewrite the entire application. And it was millions of lines of code. |
One critical sale, allowed us to finally cross the bridge to create a repeatable, scalable solution. |
And that took another 18 months. |
But that 1 sale, flourished into a fantastic outcome with returns for investors, jobs for employees and some hard-earned cash for the founders. |
Plus a lot of gratitude and some gray hair – 15 years in the making. |
 | Why Successful People Take 10 Years to 'Succeed Overnight' | There's a reason why this 10-years-to-overnight-success pattern shows up over and over. And it's not just about working hard. |
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Am I trying to dissuade you from starting your new-new thing? |
Absolutely not. |
Just the opposite. The rewards of building something from scratch far outnumber the difficulties. |
But this is a nudge to get going. |
Because it's not going to happen overnight. And not without a lot of trial and error. |
In an uncertain business world, you know you can count on yourself. |
And you don't need all the trappings of corporate. One person can grow a fantastic business today. |
Your knowledge. Effort. Consistency. Some good fortune. And just plain old-fashioned elbow grease. |
Stand up the first domino. Don't be a Wantrepreneur. |
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Now go launch something 🚀 |
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| ❝ | | | The secret to getting ahead is getting started. | | | | Mark Twain |
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Modern Tools |
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The new age of customer service is AI first. |
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Intercom for Startups |
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Old School Wisdom |
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Gary Keller adds to this week's topic in his classic book, The One Thing: |
"When you see someone who has a lot of knowledge, they learned it over time.
When you see someone who has a lot of skills, they developed them over time.
When you see someone who has done a lot, they accomplished it over time.
When you see someone who has a lot of money, they earned it over time." |
The key is over time. |
 | The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results | The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results - Kindle edition by Keller, Gary, Papasan, Jay. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. |
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 | Beehiiv: The newsletter platform built for growth. | Starting a newsletter? Access the best tools available in email, helping your newsletter scale and monetize like never before. |
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Free Knowledge |
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Hermès wasn't an overnight success either. But today they are a six generation success story like no other. |
Unlike every other luxury brand, Hermès: |
Doesn't increase supply to meet demand Doesn't loudly brand their products Doesn't do celebrity endorsements Doesn't even have a marketing department!
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Hermès has completely reinvented itself at least three times in its 187-year history. Including most recently by the family's current leaders, who responded to a 2010 takeover attempt by pursuing a radical strategy — scaling hand craftsmanship. |
And in the process they turned the company from a sleepy, ~$10B family enterprise into a $200B market cap European giant. |
This Acquired Pod is 4 hours long! |
Dial it in for your next road trip. Or find yourself sitting in your car in the driveway unable to tear yourself away! |
 | Hermès | Acquired Podcast | The complete podcast (and transcript!) of Hermès history and business strategy. |
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Recommendations |
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📰 Marketing Memos : Proven Marketing Tips for Founders |
🧠 Seven Deadly Stupidities : This newsletter will help improve your decision making by removing bias, unnecessary information, and emotion from your process. |
🌟 Creator Spotlight : Interviews and Creator Economy success stories every Friday. |
💪 Dealroom : Learn directly from billionaire entrepreneurs on how to grow a business. |
📕 MGMT Playbook : Practical management insights straight to your inbox every Wednesday. |
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Launch Key readers – thank you for your support and feedback. I appreciate each and every one of you as I work to build something you value. Remember, if there's anything you'd like to share — a recommendation, a story idea, or just a note to say hi, hit the reply button and fire away. | | | | ~ Rob |
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