The myth of the overnight success

Patterns I've noticed (wrt monetary success):

It usually takes decades which is why old guys are richer.

You can do it as an exec-employee or founder.

Contentment, comfort, routine, closed mindedness, dogma, not questioning the status quo every day, following established patterns of entrepreneurship because "that's how it's done", these are all your enemies.

Greedy and selfish people seem to do better in business. [Yeah, it's not a feel-good statement, but go out there and count the beans.]

Iterating in cycles less than 2 years with a new company every time is a sure fire recipe for not succeeding outside the Valley. Inside the Valley, you'll probably eventually get your talent acquisition money from Google. You simply don't have time to learn the market, your customers and to surround the business with people who trust it.

It takes time for you to empathize with your customer. In other words, to understand why the hell they'd give you money for your product or service.

As a founder, not fighting tooth and nail to keep as much control of your business as you possibly can is usually a leading indicator of failure. Not saying you must keep control, but there's a level of passivity I've noticed in this that usually indicates an entrepreneur who doesn't have their heart in their business.

Of course overnight success is bull. But the lottery ticket perception outsiders have of tech entrepreneurship is actually good for attracting investors and new blood, some of whom actually become real entrepreneurs. So the myth of overnight success does have it's uses.

Add OMGPOP and the recent "overnight" success of Draw Something to the list. All the articles touting it as the fastest growing game of all time ever painted the story as an overnight success, and failed to mention the backstory of the company. Not only has OMGPOP been around for 5 years, and raised 17M in VC funding, but the game itself has been around almost since the beginning as a web version, but only exploded in usage when it launched for iPhone.

Two myths at play:

1. Overnight is never overnight. More probably you just never heard of it before.

2. If you just keep going you will eventually make it. But probably not. (http://swombat.com/2012/3/10/successful-people)

Believe what you want and act accordingly.

Since moving to silicon valley I've had the good fortune to know a group of highly motivated, talented entrepreneurs. They are some of the leaders in their industry, the spearhead of an important movement.

When I first met them, none of them had achieved wild success. I watched them struggle through failed startups, crap jobs, endless fundraising and calamity.

Now several game changing startups have emerged from this group. I am proud to know them. Not one of them was an overnight success. Just determined hard work, learning, and picking themselves up off the floor.

To be a pedant, I can't imagine the coiner of this phrase or really anyone who has ever thought about it uses the term in the sense that something or someone became successful because of actions taken over a proverbial overnight. The examples he mentioned are things which became popular abruptly, which seems to embody the spirit of the phrase just right.

To take the point to the extreme, absolutely nothing could be considered an overnight success if we use the term in the sense the author implies because noone is wildly successful at something they attempt for the first time if they have no apriori knowledge of how to do it from previous attempts or study.

Great that Rovio makes the fact that Angry Birds was their 52nd game part of their mythology.

Every time I read a glossy write-up, I find myself wishing they'd dig a bit deeper into the trial-and-error and near failure that went on before companies became successful.

It takes grit, y'all!

One of my favorite examples is YouTube. They actually were about as close to "overnight success" as it gets. It was still something like a year and a half before they had significant traffic and most of us heard of them.

To me the closest example of an "overnight success" is where someone bursts on the scene as a celebrity because of their discovered personality. For example, people on reality shows become "niche" successful because they are discovered, rarely because they toiled away at that skill. However, their "success" still comes from years upon years of refined, unique experience to create the look+personality that created a star. If they had been discovered in the prepubescent period, it is almost a certainty nobody would have cared.

It's the same idea, just with different variables.

Agree with Chris. Also, how do you define overnight success? Huge traction in first few months? Significant revenues in first year? Or something else? If its building wildly profitable company then I don't think anyone (at least Internet companies) can claim they had overnight success.

Edit: Missed word "wildly"

But be careful. If you are getting series of tiny successes, or even if you have great engagement from 100 users, it is good sign. However, if your site is a ghost town after 1 year, you may want to rethink it.

Anyone know of any examples of overnight success or close to it?

Edit: Maybe Hot or Not?

Dropbox was also not the first company that Drew started.

If only it was as simple as hard work and persistence. Taleb does a great job of covering this in "The Black Swan". You may strike it big. But you may spend your whole life in the antechamber of hope.