Entrepreneurship is a lot about knocking on different doors, and while you need optimism to believe that someone will eventually answer, perseverance is what will make you go to the extent required.
You might win at some projects in your entrepreneurship journey, but you will fail a lot more. Some clients will turn you down, some investors will tell you no, some partnerships will be turned down; and to survive all this you need to be persistent.
In our comics business, we had a distributor who had the potential of opening up doors to hundreds of bookstores to us. But the distributor didn’t want to sell our comics. I personally met the team once. They kept the samples and when I followed up, they said they had lost the books. I visited again, offered new samples and they refused to partner. I kept them posted on our startup progress and chased them for six months. They still refused. Eventually, a year later, when we had actually launched eleven titles, they agreed.
But as the head of the company told me, they did not accept us for the titles we launched. They accepted us because we were too persistent in our efforts, and he was now confident that we weren't going to be a startup that opens our doors one day and sell out months later.
In the world of startups, ‘no’ is often not a ‘no’. It just means a delayed ‘yes’. An investor who turns you down typically asks you to come back months later.
A partner who turns you down is ready to open discussions again once you have a more solid case, and a client who turns you down will come around when he has confidence that you have many more clients like him. But it is persistence which helps you convert a ‘no’ to a ‘yes’. And if you start feeling dejected mid-way or abandon ship after your first few refusals, you will never see the island that lies ahead.
So be persistent, and you should find your shore! And as they say – Good things come to those who wait.
For any queries, drop me a note on Rajeev@TBSPlanet.com