Thread by @dunkhippo33

Today's tweet storm is on perseverance.

The path to growth isn't just up and to the right. There are often *lots* of plateaus along the way. Those are where ppl get stuck and want to give up.

This applies to your personal life and to your company.

Read on >>

1) We've all faced plateaus in our personal lives. E.g. Learning a new language but can only say hello. Or a new instrument or sport.

Or learning anything. Fun to try new things & get good at the easy bits. Chapter 1 in a textbook is always easy. The rest of the book is daunting

2) The same applies to startups and companies. The beginning is fun. You get some customers. Build a product. Get some learnings.

Getting that first $ in is always exciting!

3) That first spurt of growth is super exciting! You're building a billion dollar biz!

...and then you plateau. What was working before isn't working anymore. 😩Or at least not as effectively. And truth-be-told, sustaining a high growth rate for a sustained time period gets hard

4) Much like how lots of ppl drop off at this first plateau in learning a new language, this is where founders start to drop off too.

Some ppl give up and actually fold the company. But many more dawdle along - the co is technically alive but not really.

5) Funds face this too. In 2018, we @HustleFundVC hit a wall shy of a $4m raise on Fund 1. Do we keep going? Do we just "settle" for $4m?

We were out of leads. Didn't know how to find more. Nothing was working anymore. No one was committing. It seemed really bleak.

6) This is where you need to dust yourself off & keep going. A lot of ppl will throw in the towel OR dawdle along at this pt.

If you really want to do your company the way you set out to do so, this is where you need to really keep ramming against that wall.

7) But how? Nothing is working? You've tried plans A, B, C, and D.

You need to come up with plans E through Z. As well as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta...etc as you go along.

There is always a path. It's just very demoralizing to find it.

8) It helps to have moral support. This is where a co-founder can be helpful. But, shy of having one, even just support groups on WhatsApp with other founders in the same boat can be helpful.

Ppl who keep you accountable to your goals. Ppl who push you so you keep going.

9) Sometimes the same path can continue to work. Sometimes you need to try a new path. How do you know what to do?

There's no hard and fast rule, but subjectively, here's how I think about it:

10) If you have ppl (usually customers) who LOVE your current path, stick with it. Keep ramming yourself against the same wall, and it will unlock. You may have to try a few different ways around the wall.

You have to have some faith here, and sometimes it just takes time.

11) For @HustleFundVC we felt our story was resonating with early investors & founders, so we just needed to keep plowing through to find more investor-leads in our Fund 1.

And it worked. Eventually we unlocked new pockets of leads that converted.

12) If your customers LIKE your current path but don't LOVE it -- and this is where you need to be self-aware and really honest with yourself -- then maybe you need to switch paths to figure out something else. Find a different wall to get through.

13) Some signs your customers may only just like it:

-high churn
-they forget about you / your product often
-they don't tell their friends (obv depends on the prod)
-they are hard to get ahold of

Basically indifference. Not hate / dislike but indifference.

14) In fact, dislike / hate is often great, because it means they care A LOT to make you better. If they didn't care, they would walk away & not bother complaining or trying to make you better.

Ghosting is indifference. Telling you what is wrong w/ your prod is dislike.

15) Ways to keep hitting at the same wall if you have something ppl LOVE:

-brainstorm 100 new channels (this applies to emerging fund managers as well); think out of the box. Think crazy. Don't restrain your thinking. Then analyze and test the most promising ones after that.

16) Personally ask all existing customers (or investors) for a referral to "1-2 ppl who may be interested in this". Be specific about 1-2. If you keep it vague / generic, no one will help.

17) Go back to all who turned you down (whether for product or fundraising) and be direct "It would really help me improve if I could get some direct feedback - what would it take for you to say yes today?"

It could be something fixable. Or maybe not. But you have to find out.

18) Keep doing what you were doing before in parallel. It was working before. It may work again.

Customer acquisition channels don't always work even if they do in the long run work. There's seasonality. Macro events. All of these affect your buyers. Sometimes it's them not you.

19) Lastly, this one's hard to swallow, but try to embrace the hard bits. Although it doesn't feel like it, you wouldn't actually like doing this if it were easy.

Puzzles are fun to solve & this is just 1 hard puzzle that you'll crack with enough time, perseverance, & support.