Today we see many technologies grow exponentially (say hello to Moore’s Law) profoundly changing the way we build companies and live our lives. Businesses which have these technologies at their core seem to grow at a similar, breathtaking pace. There is one more area which appears to operate on an exponential curve — relationships.
Relationships require effort and care and pay off exponentially. For every additional unit of effort you put into a relationship, your payback becomes exponentially greater. There also seems to be a point where this curve starts to radically peel upward (what technologist sometimes (wrongly) call “the knee of the curve”).
Here’s why this matters: Every business is built on relationships. Relationships with your investors, partners, and customers. All too often we focus our efforts on building the product or service, setting up the company structure and do all the things on our endless to-do list but neglect building relationships. And when we need these relationships to come through, we haven’t invested enough effort and care to have them pay off exponentially. We are stuck, hustle hard and yield mediocre results.
Invest in your relationships early and continuously — it will pay off exponentially when the time comes.