The four Ps- Persistence, Pressure, Pride and Passion

The four Ps- why every founder needs them

 The are many different skills or traits that every successful founder has and a huge amount of research has gone into looking at social and academic backgrounds, personality, types etc.  I am a huge fan of simplicity and when asked what makes a successful founder or startup there are no guarantees but if you have to focus on anything then these four are key.

Persistence is a must have. I often recommend Grit by Angela Duckworth as essential reading because its so useful for any founder. However resilient you are and however much you think that you’re used to rejection, when you’re founding a business it’s next level. Jane Bianchini describes blind optimism as essential and it is but it goes even further than that. It’s not just the ability to absorb all the rejections and carry on still brimming with enthusiasm and energy. It’s the ability to get out of bed every morning despite what you know you’re going to face that day and to come into the office full of optimism and the ability to motivate and inspire your team. I often comment that most days it feels like not only is the whole world against you but it is throwing the kitchen sink at you. You have to not only want the fight but to absolutely revel in it. Almost all startups are disruptive by definition.  You will be taking on incumbents, standardised thinking, expected processes, outdated but established ways of doing things and outcomes. In whatever way you are challenging and disrupting the status quo, it will push back. The incumbents have huge resources, both human and financial, fantastic brand recognition and established market dominance. It will not be easy to disrupt this – in fact it will often feel close to impossible. Persistence and blind optimism are key.

 Along with this comes pressure. Pressure is good, it should be welcomed and embraced. It will energise you and should be used to drive and motivate you and your team to go that extra mile to win. Pressure doesn’t dissipate. It is what you get when start to achieve success and it grows with you and your business. If you’re not under pressure running a startup, however quickly its growing, then probably something is wrong. It should be embraced and it also must be controlled and compartmentalised. One way to do it is to focus purely on what you can control and ignore what you cannot control. Focus on making sure every step that is part of your process is executed to the best of your ability so that nothing is left on the table. You can only control what you can impact and you must just ignore the rest. If you execute every step that you can control  optimally then you give yourself the best shot at achieving the desire outcome.

Pressure can also be controlled by reminding yourself how you got to be in this position. If you’re about to go into a potentially business transforming meeting them remind yourself of all the successes you’ve had along the way to even get yourself into this position in the first place. You’re under pressure because of your success and you should enjoy it.

Pressure also needs to be shared. You can’t absorb it all while your team sit around thinking its all sunshine and roses. You’ll end up a shattered shell of yourself. It needs to be shared but also not just passed through in its entirety. You need to share enough to positively motivate and drive your team but at the same time not so much that they all start imploding under the stress.

As a founder you will be under huge financial pressure as well. This is part of your role. Both Olivia Leong and Sophie Bruce talk about how it’s the role of the founder to absorb this and deal with this so the team can function to the best of their ability. Making sure to put a smile on your face as you walk into the office is simple but key. If you’re not brimming with enthusiasm and excitement, then how will your team be?

 Both persistence and pressure can be helped by how you deal with failure. If you regard it as a failure when things go wrong or plans don’t work then you will quickly spiral down. If every fail that you have teaches you another thing, gives you another ingredient, that helps you get to where you’re going and is viewed in that way then you have a chance of success.

If I have to point at a single factor that will unfortunately not guarantee success but will give you the best shot at it, it is this- pride in what you do. Take pride in what you do and produce, make sure that you are proud of what you put out into the market and are able to point at it and say ‘Hey, we built that.’ If you’re proud of what you produce then your team will be too. They’ll want to come to work to produce cool things. Your culture will be great as everyone is taking pride in what you do. The challenges will be manageable as you take pride in the solutions. Clients will like what you produce. Importantly each piece that you that gives you price provides a resource to draw from when you next need to absorb pressure or remain persistent. Pride motivates. Josh Frith Angus Stevens and Luke Janssen all agree that if you can do work that you are proud of then everything will flow from that. Being proud of what you do is the most important thing and if you’re proud of what you build then the numbers will come.

 Finally, the key ingredient is passion. Passion underpins everything. Pasion for what you do, what you build, for taking on the incumbents, for disrupting outdated processes, for winning. Passion is what gets you out of bed in the morning. Passion is what drives you and energises your team. Passion is what helps you overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and levels of pressure. Passion is everything. Without passion you won’t get far at all.

Founding a business is a weird mix of hugely exciting and terrifyingly challenging and it’s not for the faint hearted but for those willing to take the chance and to have an incredibly fun, fulfilling and rewarding journey then a focus on the four Ps will stand you in good stead 😊