One Skill That Can Make Any Founder Successful in the Long Run

Do you think finding the right product idea makes a founder successful?

Do you think a perfect marketing strategy will get you there?

Or is it a fancy VC check that a lot of founders get at an early stage?

To be honest, none of that matters.

From McDonald’s to Spotify, I have seen enough stories to know that if a founder had backed off at the very end of their misery, we would not be living in the world we are living in today.

So if you ask me what separates winners from failures in the startup world, I would say it is stubbornness.

Until something is proven or has been done before, it takes a lot of patience and grit to solve a problem. There will be moments when you feel like giving up on the idea. You will think nobody actually wants it.

But a founder with the right mindset analyzes the numbers available in the market and validates the idea. Once they know it will work, they do not listen to anybody else. They just keep going with that stubbornness.

There was a time when I was developing my website from scratch using Next.js, VS Code, and ChatGPT. I did not even know how front-end and back-end worked. It took me seven days to figure everything out. Honestly, I slept maybe 3 to 4 hours a day for seven days straight just to make it work.

This time, when I rebuilt my site from scratch, it took me 17 hours. The reason is simple. I have already seen the hardships before.

In the beginning, I did not think I would finish everything in 17 hours. But once I started working, I noticed a pattern. Compared to ChatGPT, it was way faster. I did not have to deal with constant trial and error.

Compared to the past, it is taking me even less time now because I have started using Cursor AI. I do not know what it is with me and trends. I never jump in immediately. I started using Cursor AI before there was much noise around it. Now there is talk about some Clawd bot all over Moltbot, and honestly, I do not even know what that is.

There was speed and accuracy in the code. Plus, I already knew how front-end and back-end worked and how everything connected to my server. So I was not starting from scratch. I rebuilt everything like before, but this time I already knew more than 80 percent of it, so it got done.

The story is not new. It is just about keeping going through all the beating you get. Life is not unfair just to you. It is unfair to everyone.

There will be times when you feel like giving up and when it feels like it is the end. Being stubborn is what helps you unlock that door and get to the other side.

Pick any founder you like and you will see the same pattern.

Recently, I watched the movie Joy. That is where this idea of stubbornness came into my mind.

Take Joy Mangano’s story. She went through setback after setback, from family and from the entrepreneurial world, but she stayed stubborn all the way to the end.

This idea of being stubborn does not apply only to founders. We have seen it across different walks of life. 

Look at Bruce Lee, Thomas Edison, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Oprah Winfrey, etc.

Different paths, different lives, same level of stubbornness.

Go out there, be stubborn, and get whatever you want to get. The sky is yours, fly!