Mark Zuckerberg – The Definition Of Perseverance

Anytime someone mentions Facebook, people’s minds jump to all those millions of community members from the entire world connected by this social network. Say Facebook and everyone will start thinking about all the relationships this platform helped building over the last couple of years. Last, but not least, everytime someone says Facebook they are also saying Mark Zuckerberg.

Perseverance Goes A Long Way

Now although, everybody knows who Mark Zuckerberg is, not everyone is familiar with the road he took to reach entrepreneurial success. Sure, when a person who got up there gets asked how they did it, the answer they are most likely going to give is: a lot of work and perseverance, right?

Well, in Mark’s case, all that perseverance got so intense that some might say that it even turned into stubbornness. Wondering what am I talking about?

Let’s just say that after building Facebook, he got a lot of offers from big companies who wanted his product: after moving to Silicon Valley, he was offered $10 million, but decided to walk away. His decision only increased other companies’ desire to acquire Facebook. As a result, MTV offered him $75 million and Yahoo $1 billion, but he still walked away. Viacom gave $1.5 billion and this is the point where Mark almost took the offer, but once again, changed his mind unexpectedly.

What was the reason behind his ability to resist the temptation of making an early profit from his business? It might have something to do with his beliefs:

My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don’t care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that – building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.

Curious about how Mark sees the whole business world and what his thoughts on life and evolution are? Here are some principles we can all learn from:

#1 On Taking Risks

In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

#2 On Self-Confidence

People can be really smart or have skills that are directly applicable, but if they don’t really believe in it, then they are not going to really work hard.

#3 On Productivity & Accomplishment

The question I ask myself like almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’ … Unless I feel like I’m working on the most important problem that I can help with, then I’m not going to feel good about how I’m spending my time.

#4 On Innovation

Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

#5 On Dedication

If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out.

As you can see, these are just a few simple, yet extremely powerful foundations which can get you to places. They certainly got Mark where he is now, so why not apply them in your everyday life and see how this plays out for you? Nothing to lose, but everything to win.

Oh! And one more thing: if you are eager to know more about Mark Zuckerberg as an entrepreneur, check out the infographic below!

Infographic via Funders & Founders

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Photo credit: Alessio Jacona via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-SA