Last night I flipped through the 20th anniversary edition of FAST Company. It features a nifty timeline going back 20 years and highlighting breakthroughs which have been made each year.
Reminiscing the “good, old times”, one thing stood out: Most, if not nearly all, famous Internet top companies took quite some time to get to where they are today.
Mark started Facebook in 2004 (11 years ago!), as did Yelp. A year after, Etsy was born. Dropbox followed in 2007, Github and AirBnB a year later. Pandora is with us since 2000 and 1999 was the year Jack Ma opened the doors to Alibaba. And the list goes on…
Their success and the impact these companies had is undeniably huge. And their ascend is stellar (particularly when compared to traditional companies). But they also worked hard and long to reach their position.
This is all to say: There are no shortcuts.
Although media likes to portrait success stories as the proverbial “overnight success” — they typically aren‘t.
Buckle up, bring all the resolute, passion and perseverance you can muster and get ready for the long run. This will take a while. And it’s so worth it!