Success is an Iceberg

One of the things I most enjoy in my role at Mercia Ventures is sitting down with both team members and our portfolio entrepreneurs and helping chat through some of their challenges.

One of my discussions earlier in the year was around the subject of sacrifice and that it is important to be prepared to make sacrifices in order to be successful.

I think it is often the case in business like other walks of life, whereby people see the success but similar to an iceberg nobody apart from perhaps those closest to them see the elements that lead to the success and the time it takes. As Jeff Bezos is quoted as saying "All Overnight Success Takes About 10 Years."

I am often asked to give presentations to entrepreneurs and I like to show this Iceberg image to reinforce that whilst the media likes to portray the trappings of wealth that successful entrepreneurs enjoy such as nice houses and cars etc - it rarely showcases what has led to their success.

Taking each of these elements of the iceberg in turn -

Persistence - People do not see the number of negotiations or disagreements and hiccups along the way when things don’t go to plan. It’s important to keep going and focus on the small things and eventually the big things will take care of themselves. 

Failure – Michael Jordan famously said “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life.”  In my view, it’s important to think about failure as a chance to learn and in fact it's the best way to learn.  Nobody will win every new client contract or every supplier negotiation but taking stock and learning from it for next time is a key to ultimately being successful.

Sacrifice -As an entrepreneur turned investor myself I have lost count of the many ups and downs and the sleepless nights I have spent worrying over a variety of things such as cashflow and meeting payroll. In the early days this sometimes meant not paying myself and this inevitably then has knock on implications but is part of being an entrepreneur and building a successful business.  You have to be prepared (but not always need to make) personal sacrifices to achieve long term success.

Disappointment – a positive mental attitude is vital to give yourself a pep talk and bounce back from inevitable disappointments.  People will sometimes let you down, customers will change their minds or cancel contracts and team members will decide to move on.  Learning to bounce back from disappointments in a pragmatic way is vital to success.

Good Habits – According to James Clear author of Atomic Habits, the definition of a habit is “the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day.”  Success is built on a multitude of layers of habits performed consistently day in day out. Do you do this?

Dedication – if you don’t believe you will be successful, nobody will and linked to sacrifice, I believe you have to dedicate both your mental and physical energy to achieving your goals.  It's important to set out and communicate your long term and short term goals and develop plans to deliver them.

Hard Work -  I have written about hard work previously but I don’t think anyone is successful without an appetite for hard work.  Building a business is a marathon not a sprint and it’s important to keep focused with a positive mindset and develop personal endurance.

As one of the UK's most active VC investors we have the pleasure of both growing our own business as well as working hard to support the growth of our portfolio companies on a daily basis. I personally keep working hard every day to consistently put these qualities into action in order to achieve our next overnight success.