Anniversaries & Other Milestones

 

Four days ago, as all of the employees of SPAN were working remotely, our office made the private announcement that we had reached our 11th anniversary. On October 5, 2009, our two founders, Agie Sundaram and Naga Palanisamy, filed for incorporation. During that first year, they released three software products. And now, eleven year later, we’ve nearly quadrupled our products. In a few months, we’re moving into a new 12,000 square foot office.

Half in Five

Half of all new small businesses will fail within five years. There are external factors at play like the market shifting, new laws and regulations, zoning problems, increased costs of products or raw materials.

Internally, some business owners cannot manage people, or their ability to handle all the indirect responsibilities of building a business like running payroll, taxes, record-keeping is below where it needs to be for their business to remain viable.

When I look at some of the reasons why business owners—or anyone—succeed, it’s because they have more than one idea. There is no such thing as a million-dollar idea. To survive as a business, you may need a million ideas. Every hour, every minute requires the dogged pursuit of a goal. You may have an idea, but there are an infinite amount of factors working against you. The entrepreneur that is still standing after ten years (or eleven, in our case), is the one who can make the right decision, in the moment, that will move his or her business closer to being viable and sustainable.

Finding The Wrong Way

If you study the world's top performers, it won’t take you long to discover that they failed, often times for years, before discovering even a modicum of success.

There are stories of Michael Jordan locking himself in his room and crying after he was cut from his high school basketball team. Steve Jobs is marked as a visionary, but he was removed from the very company he started. Abraham Lincoln was defeated in eight elections. To find any level of success, you cannot be afraid of failure. These are the moments when you learn the most and realize that you want something badly enough to stand up one more time.

To make it as a small business, you almost have to seek out failure—to an extent, and you certainly cannot too afraid to make a decision because of it.

Valuable Time

I once heard someone point out that people always refer to the “good ‘ole days,” but rarely do they realize how wonderful the time is when they are actually living them. It’s not uncommon for people to look back and reminisce about the struggle, the long nights, the unending days filled with tireless work cycles.

As we begin our eleventh year, we keep this in mind. It’s not so much about the last decade as it about the next. There are always new ways to better serve our clients, to create software that solves problems where there are no solutions.

The traits I have gone over, the ones attached to successful people, are the same ones I recognize amongst my peers and superiors.

One of the most exciting things about being around for eleven years is the Endless Possibilities for the next eleven.

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