Only 10 percent of startups succeed, and the secret to that success can be summed up in one word: Hustle.
You might assume that startups collapse because the idea was bad, or because of a miscalculated product-market fit, but neither is usually the case. The vast majority of startups fail because of the founder’s unwillingness to get out of their comfort zone and jump, run, or even better, sprint like mad towards the goal — and to do it without a safety net.
The word hustle doesn’t always have the best connotations. However, the reality of startups is that without it, the chances of succeeding are slim at best.
A lot of people have great ideas and think that’s synonymous with hustle — it’s not. Others think their contacts are far and wide enough to get them through — they’re not. Even a great product and several rounds of financing aren’t enough to trump the lack of real, honest-to-goodness hustle. In fact, mistakenly assuming that piles of cash can make up for it is one of the primary reasons that so many startups with great buzz, great ideas, and even great people, fail.
When you have hustle, you’ll rarely find yourself in the wrong market, at the wrong time, or without the right research. You’ll never find yourself in a bad partnership or with a dwindling bank account. Having hustle means the odds of all that go way down, because a founder with hustle knows how to plow forward with each of those scenarios without getting bogged down or worn down.
That said, hustle isn’t just about the number of hours you put in, although you can certainly expect plenty of that. It’s about working smarter, building cooperative relationships, and creating a seamless workflow with an enormous impact on productivity. Hustle is hard work on steroids. It’s working thanklessly with little to no tangible reward, making it inconvenient and even painful at times — but it’s the only path to that 10 percent.
When it comes to startup success, entrepreneurs need to ask themselves, how badly do you want it and how hard are you willing to hustle to get it?
There simply is no substitute for hustle. It’s either there or it isn’t. If thriving — not just surviving — is the goal, hustle leads the way. When you have it, going the distance becomes not only possible, but plausible, and suddenly that 10 percent doesn’t seem so out of reach.
