People often discuss startup success, and these conversations are frequently led by topics such as product-market fit, venture capital investments, growth-hacking marketing, and even strategic planning.
But forget about the buzzwords for a minute here. There’s a quiet, underrated skill that often decides whether a startup founder will survive the rollercoaster grind: It’s called resilience.
Startups have a high failure rate. This landscape is littered with stories and footnotes of brilliant ideas steered by founders, but they never made it past the first year of inception.
Usually, the problem wasn’t the idea, the market demand, or even the overall team performance.
It was a lack of leadership or the founder’s inability to overcome challenges every day. It was a lack of resilience, or in other words, the capacity to adapt or persevere through rough times.
Resilience is more often than not a real differentiator between those who will succeed and those who will throw in the towel.
Why resilience is overlooked
I’ve been following startup news since 2005. And they all had a few themes in common: Innovation, boldness, or even disrupting a vertical always gets cheered on and celebrated.
Those measurable highlights are great for social media, press releases, and can boost your credibility if you plan to raise outside capital.
But resilience is overlooked and invisible. It’s not going to make headlines on LinkedIn or can’t be displayed on your pitch deck.
But think about it. Could you progress without it?
All the other skills you have, and even the small edges, are more fragile without resilience.
The reality when founding a startup
First-time founders are in for a rollercoaster ride. They constantly face uncertainty, rejection, and pressure from all fronts to succeed. Inexperienced founders get hit by a reality check more than once.
Some of those realities include:
- Constant changes and needed pivots if your business model is failing
- Cash flow crunches, when your runway starts to look grim due to unexpected costs
- Mental strain, where every hour of your hard work puts you at risk of burnout
- Constant rejection, whether that’s by leads or even investors
Even though first-time founders expect those hurdles in theory. But few truly understand the emotional stamina, endurance, and what it really takes to face those challenges for years.
While first-time founders are aware of these hurdles in theory, few truly comprehend the emotional resilience, endurance, and the true demands of enduring these challenges for years.
Why startups fail without resilience
When resilience is absent, first-time founders tend to fall into a few classic traps.
Overreacting to setbacks, no matter how small. Without the emotional buffer resilience provides, founders often make irrational decisions that make their situation worse.
That bad decision can lead to a loss of perspective, and they’re often consumed by immediate problems only, ignoring the fundamentals and strategic planning.
That poor decision can lead to a loss of perspective, causing individuals to be consumed by immediate problems, neglecting the fundamentals and strategic side.
Resilience isn’t about being unaffected by challenges. Because every founder feels the weight of stress, rejection, and even fear. The difference is how they respond to those challenges.
You could break it down into three major traits:
- Adaptability: Knowing when to adjust
- Optimism with realism: Maintaining hope without ignoring the facts
- Persistence: Continuing forward, even when progress feels painfully slow
When you’re constantly swimming upstream, treat those challenges as an opportunity. Turn them into data points and benchmarks.
How to build resilience as a startup founder
Even though there’s no instant fix or straightforward solution, see it as if you were about to go to the gym, following a workout routine that strengthens your muscles.
Some of the practical ways I applied were:
- Normalizing failures and setbacks
- Find a good mentor and startup coach when the time is right
- Balancing time and conserving energy, so you can avoid decision fatigue
- Mentality shift, and view “disasters” as challenges to solve
- Reminding myself enough of what I am aiming for (mission & clarity)
Close
Most founders I came across always focus on speed, funding, and try to be a disruptor in their vertical or industry.
Sure, you should focus on those, but resilience offers a long-game advantage. When 90% of the startups fail, the lack of resilience is responsible for a big part of those failures.
You want to outlast your competitors who burn out, are unable to adapt to market shifts, and don’t know how to keep morale high within the team during tough times.
The reality is that every startup and founder will hit walls. Those who survive never had a perfect launch strategy.
Instead, they take the hits, regroup, and push forward, even when they take two steps backwards.
Startups are unpredictable. Resilience might be your most valuable asset to survive.
About the author
Jiang Ming-Te is the founder & creator of Echo Point Global, where he works with founders through consulting and async founder coaching, while also acquiring and reviving overlooked projects through micro private equity.