The Unfair Advantage

I've seen founders of all backgrounds try to reach for the stars. Many fail. And most people who succeed take a long time to do so.

Usually with a lot of failures along the way.

Yet, every so often I come across someone who looks at other people's success and claims that there is some external factor that made them succeed in their venture.

They claim that something like having a large salary at a big-name company before going out on their own is what gave them the unfair advantage to succeed over regular folk. Whatever regular folk means.

If you ask me, this is pure nonsense.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that having money isn't good. I'm also not saying that more money is not better than less money.

But what you want isn't a large salary. What you want is a long runway.

What the successful founders all have is an unwavering belief that they will succeed if they just stick with it long enough.

And the most common unfair advantage I've seen is consistently putting in the work, even if they know it's not good¹. Showing up. Doing what it takes to hone your skills until the quality of your work becomes undeniable.

Imagine someone putting in the work, day in and day out, over and over for a decade. How far do you think they have come? Where do they work? What's their salary?

Now imagine that same person starting their own business. Is it the job they have that is their unfair advantage?

Or does their unfair advantage come from having dedicated the better part of a decade to becoming so good you just can't ignore them? ²

Just hard work is of course no guarantee. But my experience tells me that the person who is willing to give it their all will beat the person who isn't.

Every. Single. Time.