Entrepreneurship is Hyped, we should Celebrate the “Survivalist”
Recently I went back home to my village and spotted a sign in front of a retail store, where a plain sign announced the 75-years anniversary. Based on today’s digital transformation songs the store isn’t supposed to be around, because the business consistently ignored all digital trends since the 50s. It looks pretty much like 20 years ago, it never changed — any website, no social media presence, credit card not accepted, closed on weekends, the business runs on pen and paper and it takes a month until the customer gets the custom-made leather bag. All the passion, all the money, all the love goes into one single thing: Creating the perfect product.
The business stays in the game by focusing on what really matters to their customers, and they defend the hard-earned success for over 75 years. The employees are obsessed by doing this one thing day in and day out. Business is successful, its profitable and the customers are happy. In short, they are winners. But the business is not celebrated, not even in the local newspaper. It’s because keeping things going isn’t shiny, it’s unsexy. On the other side, only a very few of today’s start-ups will be around in 2100. In contrast, plenty of media attention goes into those start-ups, to the point that failing often seems to be afforded as much respect as succeeding. It’s because humans like great innovation, even there is no output.
I’m a big believer in failing fast and early, we should not be afraid of failing. But we need to stop celebrating failure and undervalue people working with endurance, excellence, and integrity. I believe that those businesses deserve a big round of applause for getting up every day, even if it is “just” for keeping things going.
As fancy and exciting start-ups are, let’s not forget and encourage the super heroes who fight hard to keep established business going, spend a second and give them some kudos for having the endurance. Keeping it up is harder than getting it started.