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170 6 SECRETS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

project early sales and under-project costs, the startup runway can
evaporate quickly and dangerously. This is the immediate reason why
many ventures fail without ever turning a profit. But it also points to
a significant opportunity: Entrepreneurs who do what is necessary to
keep their business alive over time, treating time as a competitive ad-
vantage rather than a dwindling resource, can dramatically elevate
their odds of venture survival and growth. “The first thing we know
about being successful as an entrepreneur is: If you can make it
through the early years, your odds of success will go way up,” writes
Scott Shane, professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Re-
serve University and author of The Illusions of Entrepreneurship. Shane
cites more than twenty studies, showing that, when it comes to new
ventures, “the odds of your new business failing are highest when you
first start and decline in relation to the length of time you have been
in business. And it isn’t just the chance of staying alive that increases
over time. The data also show that the average start-up also becomes
more profitable as it gets older.”1

This final chapter will focus on strategies for strengthening your
venture’s staying power, your ability to keep moving forward. The
forces impacting staying power operate at two levels. The first level
is that of the venture itself, where factors external to you as a founder
will either lengthen your runway or cut it dangerously short. The sec-
ond set of forces acts at the personal level, where your ability to per-
form with stamina and persevere over time will ultimately determine
your success in building a thriving business over the long haul.

Venture-Level Strategies: Strengthening and
Lengthening Your Runway

The metaphor of the runway is widely used among entrepreneurs to
represent both the excitement of speeding toward a successful liftoff
and the risk of crashing into the heap of floundering ventures just
beyond the end of the pavement. What follows are four strategies for
building a long, strong runway for your venture.

American Management Association • www.amanet.org