Every generation of entrepreneurs believes it’s the one that can skip steps. Start earlier. Move faster. Figure it out on the fly. That story is compelling. It’s also incomplete. In a recent Fortune article, Jeff Bezos offered advice to Gen Z that cuts directly against the dominant startup mythology: get real work experience before launching a company. Bezos didn’t say this as a critic of entrepreneurship. He said it as someone who built Amazon—starting at age 30, after nearly a decade of professional experience. This wasn’t a casual comment. It was a strategic observation.
Resilience: The Foundational Skill Every Entrepreneur Needs
Resilience: The Foundational Skill Every Entrepreneur Needs
by Clint Day
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“Entrepreneurship is about experimentation: the probabilities of success are low, extremely skewed, and unknowable until an investment is made.”
After more than a decade of building ventures across Asia, I can say with full conviction: this is the most honest statement I’ve ever heard about entrepreneurship.
It’s not a comfortable truth. But it’s the truth: Not everyone is built to be an entrepreneur.
It’s Not About the Idea — It’s About the Bounce Back
The defining trait that separates those who make it from those who don’t isn’t brilliance, funding, or even having a world-changing idea. It’s resilience — your ability to recover from failure and keep moving forward.
When I co-founded ATEC back in 2016, we had a big vision: clean cooking tech that could dramatically reduce indoor air pollution, raise household incomes, and help fight climate change.
The potential was enormous. The reality? Much harder. In Cambodia, we faced skeptical customers, fragmented logistics, and moments where it felt like nothing would work.
Those were the first of many inflection points: quit, or adapt. We chose to listen more deeply to our customers, refine the model, and push forward — one step at a time.
Resilience Is a Repeating Test
That first battle wasn’t the last. A decade later, with $10M+ raised and over 100,000 lives impacted, I still get tested — maybe more now than ever.
When we expanded into Bangladesh in late 2019, we thought we had most of the hard lessons behind us. Instead, we faced a new wave of challenges:
regulatory surprises
partner commitments that didn’t hold
and a distribution model that didn’t translate well across borders
Then COVID-19 hit.
Once again, we had to make a choice: fold, or find another way. And once again, resilience was the difference. (Also — the golden startup rule of hiring the best damn person as your first hire helped, too.)
Are You Built for This?
Some people face their first real obstacle and realize this path isn’t for them — and that’s perfectly okay. We need all kinds of people to make a society thrive.
But if you're someone who:
gets knocked down
admits where you went wrong
and feels compelled to try again
— then you're likely an entrepreneur at heart.
You can be born with that instinct, or you can develop it. But there’s only one way to know for sure: jump into the void, fail, and see how you respond.
If you survive that first storm — welcome to the path.
Just don’t get fooled by the glorified success stories. Real entrepreneurship doesn’t feel like glory. It feels like grit. It hurts. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
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