Persistence pays

It's nice to hear about a struggling startup that finally makes it big - it brings a lot more hope than stories about hot shots that are winners right out of the gate, because let's face it, there are more strugglers than shooting stars. I recently read an article about Pandora (which you can read here) about how after 10 years (wow!) of precarious fortunes they're finally raking it in.

Sure, you could say they got a lucky break when they'd come out with an iPhone app to ride the iPhone took off - but luck is often preparedness meeting opportunity. More importantly, they're flourishing because they stuck with it. In older posts about the right stuff for entrepreneurs and the balancing act they'd have to do, I'd mentioned how important it is for an entrepreneur to do everything s/he can to make the venture work. I'd also linked to Paul Graham's essay on startup lessons where #5 was 'commitment is a self-fulfilling prophecy'. The story of Pandora is a great validation of this precept - in fact one of their VCs says that while their pitch itself wasn't interesting, founder Tim Westergren came across as an entrepreneur who wouldn't fail which is why they invested in him.

Pandora is one of my favorite apps and I'm happy that they persisted through so many downturns to finally become a success story that's an inspiration to all entrepreneurs - and it's a safe bet their 48 million+ users are happy too.