Slow Persistence — Not Only Luck

Building an early startup is a hunt to find ripe fruit for the business. There is not enough time to wait on prospects that are going to take 18 months to buy something or to wait on investors that are going to take forever to make a decision. It’s a scramble to find stuff that is ready-to-go for your startup.

However, much of the fruit that can be harvested in a later-stage startup comes from seeds planted years previously. Through the slow application of persistence, relationships can grow and ripen. After over 6 years in our startup, many of the good things that are happening to our company now come from seeds we planted many years ago.

Here are some more thoughts on slow persistence:

During the initial scramble, it’s important to have a seed planting game plan. While you cannot afford to waste time selling to people that are not ready to buy, you can leave them with a great impression of your business and your vision. You can leave them interested in keeping tabs on your progress. Don’t scorch the earth.
The fruits of slow persistence can come in the form of employees that join after many years of relationship development, customers that finally make a purchase, partners that finally put teeth into substantive programs, and investors that become believers.
Slow persistence should not be heavy handed. You can’t afford to spend a lot of time on it. But you can develop a plan to send a few messages a year to these laggards.
In later-stage startups, revenue from slow persistence is additive to revenue from ripe fruit hunting sales processes. This is a big advantage for startups that survive through the initial difficult years.
Slow persistence is also related to brand recognition becoming strong by virtue of sticking around long enough for your startup’s brand to permeate.

What are your thoughts on slow persistence?

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