Building A Business for the Long Haul

Hey founders! 

As we wrap up another week, let’s start with a question: 

What’s your vision for your business in 26 years?

A bit unusual to think about, right? Especially in business, it’s hard to think past the task right in front of us. 

• The email you need to respond to.

• The report you have to write.

• The invoice you have to pay. 

So many things are vying for your attention and focus right now.

But what would happen if you took a moment to broaden your scope? 

Instead of 1 or 5-year goals for your business. What if you had 26-year goals? 

How would that change your approach?

Let’s talk a little more about that:

Marathon vs. Sprint

Entrepreneurs often say, “It’s a sprint, not a marathon.” 

But can we be honest about something? 

The sprinters get the most attention online. We see this on Twitter every day: 

“They built a $1M business in 3 months!”

“$100M business in 2 years!”

“They built and sold their software company in less than a year!”

But today we want to offer a different perspective: Great things are rarely built overnight. 

For the most part, business is about steady, consistent progress over a long period. Great things take steady progress.

Back to the question we asked at the beginning: what’s the 26-year vision for your business? 

By embracing this mindset, you shift your focus from immediate results to sustainable growth. Instead of racing to make a quick buck, focus on creating lasting value. This approach not only builds a more resilient business but also one that can weather the storms of market changes and economic shifts.

Compound Interest

There’s this cool image from the Twitter account called @visualizevalue

It’s meant to represent what compound interest often looks like: slow at first, with most of the growth coming at the end. 

When you’re starting a business, it will feel like incremental progress for a long time. So long that it becomes uncomfortable…

But the people who build bit by bit see their results compound over time. Eventually leading to exponential growth because of the foundation it was built on. 

Nike took over fifteen years before it saw any real success, and several more after that before it really exploded. 

Starbucks started as one coffee shop. It took sixteen years before they expanded past the city of Seattle. 

Here’s the point: don’t be fooled by the flashy growth you see online. Some of the businesses will flame out within 5 years.

But you’re not worried about the next 5 years. You are thinking about your business in 26 years. 

Why Not Both?

We can already feel a lot of you resisting this concept because you want quicker success. Because you want freedom sooner. Because you want to make something, sell it, and ride off into the sunset as a success, where you can then do whatever the hell you want. 

Fair enough!

So here’s a different approach: why not both? 

The sprint vs marathon concept is a false dichotomy. People look for things to be either, or, but oftentimes the answer is both.

Sprint vs marathon implies that you are walking or crawling. But that’s not the case. You should still be moving forward at a strong and steady pace. You should still be running. 

You need to strike a balance. 

You need to move with speed, but you also need to be patient and realize that greatness is achieved over a long period of time. People often get impatient because they want things to happen quickly, they want the results now. 

But just like a marathon, it’s not finished at one mile. It’s not finished at two. It takes years and years (and years).

You Have Time!

Beyond trying to figure out whether you should go fast or slow (or both), remember that you have time.

You have time with what you are building. 

Being in a hurry for results only leads to stress and will probably lead to bad decisions. Realizing you have time, and that you are building something that will last a long time, should help to get you to think differently. 

• Instead of how to build fast, start to think about how to build real value over time. 

• Instead of thinking about how to grind hard for a short time, start to think about how to design a schedule you can do for years on end. 

• Instead of thinking about building something to be done within one year, start to think about what your ideal company would look like in the long run. 

You have YEARS ahead of you. 

That’s something to get excited about! You can build the thing you want for years. Design your life around that. Make it the way you want to build it. 

The possibilities are endless when you realize you have time on your hands. 

That’s it! Have a fantastic rest of your week,

– The Tribe Team