Alexander Muse of Texas Startup Blog wrote a great post on the dedication required to get past the initial phase of starting a business.

I’ve never heard anyone point specifically to 13 months as a benchmark before, but I like his line of reasoning. I can say that I completely agree with the idea that most people quit to early; before they’ve even had a chance to taste success.

The phenomenon that I see happen to people is that they decide multiple times instead of “deciding once”. “Deciding once” is one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in life, and unfortunately I can’t recall where I picked it up. Somebody deserves some credit!

By “deciding once” I mean to do all of your homework, weigh the risks and alternatives, get yourself to the point of making a decision - and then decide to decide once. Once you’ve made your decision, resolve to no longer let your mind scramble on whether you made the right decision or not - just move forward with all of your energy and 100% commitment. So much time and energy is wasted on reconsidering your decisions after you’ve made them; you are better off just deciding once and being done with it.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you foolishly go in one direction forever just because you decided to many years ago. You should set some sort of time frame and milestones that make sense to base an evaluation on (13 months?), and then commit like hell until you reach your evaluation point and then make another decision…once!

MRC