Origins #48 - Success Stories
What it really takes
In this series we are documenting the journey of building DULO, starting from Day 1. Every week we publish a new chapter that takes you behind the scenes of our process. With every article we want to provide value to you, the reader. We share the success and failures, the opportunities and the challenges that we face while executing our vision.
If you are new, check out our previous post.
This post was meant to be the second part of a two-part series, where we (me and Marin) share our current thoughts on branding and how we want to approach it in building this business. But, given that Marin covered the topic quite extensively and consistent with what I think about it, to avoid unnecessary repetition, let’s take a swift turn and talk about success stories.
In my daily routine, I try to read (while filtering A LOT) about how other people, in a similar position (finances, time, experience) go about and have built successful businesses.
I happen to often come across a “success story” that is framed as a lesson in X (insert business activity here). There is a brief mention of when the company was founded, and then the narrative quickly skips to a lesson, insight, or event that has been very successful. Usually an amazing feat of conversion and success in getting on the first page of X, or getting X number of visitors, or sales after doing X.
That’s all fine, there are some lessons in there, how they went about it etc., but I always end up with a bittersweet taste, subconsciously comparing those results, with the results we currently have, even though the time frames of each are completely different.
We somehow skip the journey and put the tipping points of success on a pedestal, with no respect of what has gone into that (years of hard work) and what laid the foundations for that moment.
“Founded in 2008…….in 2018 X company made 100k in a day by ….”. Hold on a sec, what happened between 2008 and 2018? Surely there was a period of learning, testing, experimenting and failing, which is just as valuable to share, at least for contextual purposes.
As business owners and storytellers, we have a responsibility to respect and set expectations of what it actually takes to build a successful business. Anyone out there reading these types of stories, starting a business and not seeing similar results, in the beginning, will feel discouraged that he’s not doing that well of a job. Even though he might be doing a great job, but the timeline is completely different.
Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle
There are a few reasons that we are documenting our journey, some selfish, some not so much, but I can see that there is one aspect of it that can provide a clear perspective, on what it actually takes to build something. Hopefully, when we have our “big” moment, or moments, we need to make it clear for people, what has happened in order to make that moment possible.
The small, mundane steps, failures and experiments are just as valuable in painting a realistic picture of success.
A good read and the inspiration behind these thoughts — Sumo’s 5 eCommerce Success Stories. Sure, there are some lessons in there, but reading it with the perspective of time and context in the back of one’s mind is even more valuable and insightful.