Overnight Success
People are always surprised that Wattpad is already 5 years old. Interesting that I don’t think we are the only startup that took more than a couple of months to generate traction:
- Nine months after launch, Pinterest had 10,000 registered users. Most of them were inactive.
- Angry Birds was Rovio 52nd game. Most of the first 51 failed and the company almost went bankrupt.
- It took OMGPOP almost six years before becoming an overnight sensation with their #1 app Draw Something.
- Airbnb got no traction early on. The founders had to sell numbered edition of Obama O’s cereal and use the proceeds to keep Airbnb alive.
- BranchOut took almost 2 years to cross the 1-million-user mark. Now it is adding 1 million every 2 weeks.
The list can go on and on.
We are all spoiled by YouTube’s launch-and-get-sold-in-1.6-billion-in-15-months story. YouTube was a once-in-a-decade success. Don’t expect your company to be like that. Most companies take a whole lot longer to build.
Hard work. Persistence. Sweat. And some blood occasionally. There is no short cut. Dream big. But be patience. It is normal to take more than a couple of months to generate traction.
