I’d like to close this chapter with an essential caveat about persistence from Built to Last. Of all the paragraphs I’ve authored or co-authored in thirty years, this is one of the most essential for entrepreneurs and leaders of early-stage ventures, reproduced here as a reminder to keep firmly in mind as you build your company:

The builders of visionary companies were highly persistent, living to the motto: Never, never, never give up. But what to persist with? The company. Be prepared to kill, revise, or evolve an idea . . . but never give up on the company. If you equate the success of your company with the success of a specific idea—as many businesspeople do—then you’re more likely to give up on the company if that idea fails; and if that idea happens to succeed, you’re more likely to have an emotional love affair with that idea and stick with it too long, when the company should be moving vigorously on to other things. But if you see the ultimate creation as the company, not the execution of a specific idea . . . then you can persist beyond any specific idea—good or bad— and move toward becoming an enduring great institution.

You should talk to people and make connections because you’re naturally curious. You want to know how other teams at your company work and what people do. You want to talk to your competitors because you’re all working to solve the same problems and they’re taking a different approach. You want your projects to be successful, so you don’t just talk to your immediate teammates at lunch—you grab lunch with your partners, your customers, their

customers, their partners. You talk to everyone: get their ideas and their perspectives. In doing so you may be able to help someone or make a friend or strike up an interesting conversation.

So to preserve what you love, have your team write down the things they value most and build a plan to continue them. And remember it’s not necessarily the obvious stuff that binds people to your company—it can be small things, silly things.

When you value something deeply, don’t shy away from talking about it. Instead, embrace telling people why it’s important to you. Assume that for the message to stick, it should be heard ten different times and said in ten different ways. The more you can enlist others to help spread your message, the more likely it is to have an impact.

When you spend this much time encouraging your team to contribute, you’d better make sure your team knows that your doors are always open to ideas. There’s a better way to do everything, and I made it clear: if you had an idea for how we could improve, I wanted to hear it. The first time someone comes to you with an idea, listen closely, because how you handle it will dictate how they choose to contribute in the future. Dismiss them that first time, and you’ll extinguish a flame that’s difficult to rekindle.