{"id":5117,"date":"2019-08-29T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/?p=5117"},"modified":"2025-01-22T11:58:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T10:58:19","slug":"overnight-success-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/overnight-success-10-years","title":{"rendered":"How to become an overnight success…in 10 years. My story."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When we think about startups, we usually think about small tech companies with innovative ideas\/solutions that have the potential to experience enormous growth in a short period of time. To a certain degree, Beebole, the company I created 10 years ago with my friend Mic Cvilic, fits that idea. However, I\u2019ve never considered Beebole a startup\u2026which is probably one of the reasons that it has grown into a successful business.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
A look at the early days. Here I am with CTO and co-founder Mic Cvilic and developer Hughes Waroquier at the Beebole team at Google I\/O 2010. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The problem with the startup world<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To give you a bit of background<\/em>, my company is in the *really* competitive niche of timesheet<\/svg><\/span><\/a> business, with a time-tracking software as a service (SaaS) solution that allows companies to handle HR and management-related tasks. That said, when we created Beebole 10 years ago, the SaaS model was just taking off. Back then in Brussels, where I lived, there was a growing entrepreneurial community with a message that just didn\u2019t appeal to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That message, which we still hear today across the startup world, focuses on the ability to raise millions and do something extraordinary with that money. The big story has been always the same: come up with a fantastic idea, persuade investors to give you money, and become a millionaire in the blink of an eye. <\/strong>Often, we don\u2019t even know what happens to these companies after they\u2019ve raised their capital, and many end up failing because they don\u2019t know how to transform those millions into something truly valuable.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along those lines, in the startup community (or even in media covering startups) you rarely hear stories of small companies like ours that took a different approach and eventually became profitable. It\u2019s just not a sexy story<\/strong>. Instead, when we stepped into the startup world, everyone was dreaming about the big idea that would change their lives and make their companies an overnight success<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No such thing as overnight success<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, the idea of \u201covernight success\u201d has always been sort of a mirage to me. In fact, during my first year with Beebole, I remember reading a post by the CEO of MailChimp, at a time when his company was the latest darling of the start-up scene. In that post, he said that it was funny to hear people say that MailChimp was an overnight success, when it had taken them 7 years and 4 versions to reach that point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conceiving a company with the idea that it\u2019s going to be an overnight success is just wrong.<\/strong> In fact, there are two big fallacies in that approach. First of all, there is no such thing as the \u201csuper idea.\u201d There are so many people out there, so many would-be entrepreneurs, that the idea probably exists somewhere already. Rather than agonizing over coming up with that \u201csuper idea,\u201d the goal should be taking an idea, refining it, and trying to make it real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, starting a business with the ultimate goal of suddenly making millions is completely wrong<\/strong>; it\u2019s like playing the lottery. It shouldn\u2019t be about you<\/em>, but rather about creating a viable company. I strongly believe that building a company with the wrong goals can be fatal. If you\u2019re only in it for the millions, your focus is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entrepreneurship as a way of life<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, I never dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur or of having my own company. As far as I remember, I simply wanted to go to college and become an engineer. In fact, I ended up getting a degree in Computer Engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting my own business also never came to mind in part because Belgian universities don\u2019t teach entrepreneurship. The belief there is that if you become a teacher at a university, or you get a PhD, you will be respected. Being an entrepreneur, however, is not really something to aspire to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was my associate Mic Cvilic who changed my mind and showed me the potential of becoming an entrepreneur. I certainly don\u2019t regret<\/em> my choice. The freedom you get from being your own boss is something I like very much. For me, entrepreneurship wasn\u2019t about a million-dollar idea, but rather about freedom, building my own company, and making my own decisions<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Celebrating
We love this: meeting in the Alps every January.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Being an entrepreneur was also about controlling my own time in many ways. I see it more as a way of life than just something that will make me rich and, to be honest, I\u2019ve never seen that message highlighted in the startup world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Beebole, we established a remote culture<\/strong> from the very beginning. In fact, when we created the company I was living in India, and for me it was very important to continue that lifestyle. If one of us wanted to spend a week in the mountains (and I love the mountains!), we wanted to make sure that we could. And we did. I can take my family there and work from there. The only thing I need is a good connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one thing you need<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Growing your company from day one to the point of profitability requires a lot of work. You need to have a good product, listen to your customers, adapt the product based on that feedback, and reiterate. However, you also need to deal with setbacks and difficulties along the way, and there\u2019s only one thing that can help you with that: resilience!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You need to stay focused and view setbacks as part of the process. For instance, when we created Beebole we decided to remain self-funded<\/strong>, which is much more difficult to do. We didn\u2019t like the idea of bringing in investors because we wanted to maintain full control of the company and its mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 2 years we ran out of money, so I decided to go back to consulting. That was one of my most challenging moments, especially because I had no desire to do consulting again. However, I knew I had to do it as part of the process of continuing to support our company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During that time, I was essentially working a double shift. I used to spend my regular hours doing consulting and my evening time working for Beebole. On the third year, I saw the light! Beebole was still growing and I finally saw that we could become profitable. That third year was very tiring, but somehow I don\u2019t remember it as being particularly difficult. The fact that something is exhausting doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that it is difficult. I believe that your own approach to whatever you\u2019re doing will decide if that\u2019s the case or not.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Planning
Beebole team in June 2019 at the annual summer meeting in Brussels. From left to right: Helen, Elena, me, Mic, Miguel, Hughes and Katie (taking the picture).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, your attitude is more important than the cash. If you need money, you can find investors or a day job and work in the evenings as I did. If you\u2019re resilient and you want to make it happen, you will find solutions. For me, resilience is the basis of all things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learn more about Beebole & how project time tracking can maximize profits.<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMORE INFO!\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Everything will be fine.<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I never thought Beebole would fail. I\u2019m a very optimistic person and that idea never crossed my mind. Growth has been constant. In 11 years we have never had a moment when growth stopped. <\/strong>It kept me going with confidence, because we could see that we were doing something right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While at some point you may face a big crisis, in my experience there are usually many small problems happening at any given time. Sometimes, you just need to let it go. Instead of focusing on all those little, negative things, you need to focus on the positive and move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also never felt negatively about Beebole. If there was something wrong, I never tried to blame the company or anyone else. Every time I was faced with a challenge, I asked the same question: What can I do to actually make this better?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, I think Beebole could be considered a successful startup without a Hollywood story. Indeed, our company reached that point by going against the \u201cregular\u201d approach in the startup scene. We avoided the common traps of the startup world, while embracing entrepreneurship as a way of life. We added lots of hard work, focus, and resilience into the process and the results have been great. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we think about startups, we usually think about small tech companies with innovative ideas\/solutions that have the potential to experience enormous growth in a short period of time. To a certain degree, Beebole, the company I created 10 years ago with my friend Mic Cvilic, fits that idea. However, I\u2019ve never considered Beebole a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3987],"class_list":["post-5117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beebole-news","tag-beebole"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5117"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13278,"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5117\/revisions\/13278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beebole.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}