A founder uses seasons to map business stages: spring is easy startup, summer is brutal growth, autumn brings opportunity, winter forces you to become a better operator. The world's best companies were founded in economic downturns because hard times teach you how to actually run a business.
We look at seasons, right? Spring, autumn, summer, winter. Any idiot can build a business in spring. You know, if you get into a new relationship, it's very easy to maintain that relationship in the first couple of weeks, right? What about when you're 50? You move into winter, you face sickness with each other, cancers, all these kind of stuff. Well, guess what? It's the same thing in business. You move from starting a business, which is spring— this is really easy, all I need to do is fill my own books up— then you go into summer, and summer's pretty challenging. Why? Because it's hot in summer and things die. You've got to be a little bit better than you were, but then you've moved Autumn, there's new opportunities. Then you move into winter, that's when people are tightening up the belt. You have to become a better operator. You know, the biggest businesses in the world, the most successful businesses in the world, were started in economic winters. Why? Because they learned how to run a business when it was fucking hard.
