"If you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill once said.
This quote is really applicable to entrepreneurs. Mainly because rarely, if ever, does the process of starting and growing a company go smoothly. There are often lots of mis-starts and mistakes and course correction is nearly always required.
There are lots of times when entrepreneurs must "go through hell." For example, when the entrepreneur is seeking capital, or looking for initial customers or distributors. Other things like hiring key team members or executing on a new marketing campaign can also be quite challenging.
But as Churchill pointed out, entrepreneurs must keep going. That's not to say that you should put your head down and try to bulldoze through whatever you're trying to accomplish. If things aren't going well, you need to consider alternatives.
Specifically, if something doesn't work at first, you must try, try again. But if it doesn't work a second time, you need to start rethinking and modifying your strategy.
Incremental changes often bring about significant results. And these incremental changes often result from trying something that didn't work at first, and continually modifying it until it does.
One example that comes to mind for me is raising venture capital. In my early days, I met with a lot of venture capitalists to try to raise money for my clients. And I encountered a lot of failure. Meeting after meeting after meeting, but no results. So, I started trying new things, and sure enough, after trying enough new tactics, I found ones that really worked.
Article by Dave Lavinsky, growthinkBlog
