What’s common between the founders of GoPro, Sony & Walmart?
It has nothing to do with their success
1. Walmart
15 years before starting Walmart, Sam Walton — it’s founder, opened his first retail store.
He made plenty of mistakes, but he learnt even more.
He learnt about bulk discounting, placing popcorn & ice cream machines on store fronts to influence the direction customers walked, buying directly from manufacturers to reduce costs, etc.
When he finally started Walmart, it’s “overnight success” was 15 years in the making.
2. SONY
Akio Morita — founder of Sony, had a turbulent journey too.
The company’s initial product — an electric rice cooker was a failure. But the cooker started becoming well known for burning the rice versus cooking it.
Undeterred, Akio persevered.
He learned through trial & error. Launching multiple products until hitting gold with the portable radio.
3. GoPro
Did you know — Nick Woodman’s 2nd startup Funbug, was rated one of Silicon Valley’s worst failures?
Yep.
But failure and rejection is one of the most powerful motivators known to man.
It drove him to work tirelessly — over 18 hrs/day on creating one of the mosts recognised sports & adventure brands — GoPro.
He let nothing get in the way. Not even money.
In an effort to raise money, Nick & his wife bought 600 sea shell belts in Bali at $1.90 each. They sold these belts in California for $60 each.
This is what I believe.
We hail successful entrepreneurs & founders as messiahs, but the sudden success we observe rarely tells the full story.
Just like an iceberg, what you see on the surface is just 10% of the entire picture.
What seems to be an overnight success is a result of years of failure, sacrifice & learning.
And if nothing else, just pay attention to these words —
The biggest difference between you & any successful person is your level of persistence.
You haven’t failed, you just haven’t succeeded yet.
