Naval Ravikant shares the common thread he sees across the great companies

“I definitely believe that, as an entrepreneur, you’ll never accomplish anything great in life unless you stick with it through the end.”

In the clip below, Naval shares that he was reminiscing on the several amazing companies he had seen in his career: Dropbox, Twilio, Airbnb, Square, Twitter, etc.

“I was thinking to myself: What was the common thread amongst each of them? It’s very hard to draw a common thread across such a large group. And I realized that the entrepreneurs were extremely deliberate in every early decision that they made. They were not haphazard. And the reason is because they really felt like they were laying the foundation for a 10-year business. None of them were thinking of it as something they would try and flip.”

He continues:

“That’s necessary, but not sufficient. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who are forward-looking who will not make it. But I think that unless you’re extremely forward-looking, in it for the long haul, and you ooze that with every fiber of your being, you’re never going to build a great business.”

The best founders, he argues:

“work every detail out: the name, the logo, every investor, every person they hire, where they put the office. Every little detail really matters to them because they’re laying bricks to a foundation.”

And the less forward-looking founders will “sell when they get the first offer or shut down when they hit the first speed bump.”

Full video: This Week in Startups “Naval Ravikant of AngelList: the new wave of venture capital | E244” (Apr 2012)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Naval Ravikant insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from Naval Ravikant"