Everyone wants the strategy. Nobody wants the actual answer.
There is no secret. There is just not quitting, for long enough, next to the right people.
Six years ago I started raising outside capital and creating an investment firm within my family's business. Nobody in the family had done that before. I did not have a playbook. I had a lot of no's and a lot of nights wondering if I was the problem.
If you are early in building something new, a few things I would tell you:
1. Expect the first version of the plan to be wrong. Our first pitch deck does not resemble what we send investors today. Being wrong early is not a signal to stop. It is just the first draft doing its job.
2. Borrow conviction on the days you run out of your own. There were stretches where I did not believe in the timeline. My business partner Lino Campanile and my sister Kelly Chang Levine lent me conviction when I didn't have any of my own.
My husband (today is his birthday, happy birthday John!!!!) carried more than his share at home during the years this took everything I had. You do not need to feel certain every day. You need people around you who are certain on the days you are not.
3. The work does not get easier. It gets more familiar. I still feel the ask every time. What has changed is that I no longer mistake the fear for a sign I am on the wrong path.
Six years in, on track to close over half a dozen properties this year, most of it funded by people who were strangers when I started. None of it was one good idea. It was refusing to stop, next to people who refused to let me.
If you are building something new right now and it feels slower than it should, that is not a signal either. Keep going.
What is the thing that kept you from quitting in the middle of your hardest stretch?
There Is No Secret. Just Don’t Quit
