When you’re building a company from scratch, the early years feel different. Progress can feel slow, wins can take longer than expected, and the milestones you imagined would come quickly might take years. But that doesn’t mean you’re failing, you’re working on founder time.
Viktor Lopatkin, co-founder of MindK, a 140-person software development company, admits the early years can be tough. “Everything crumbles, everything sucks, and we’re not making any money.”
Over time, though, things shifted for Viktor. “If you survive long enough, you start to see another day,” he says. For Viktor, that came in years five and six, when the lessons, relationships, and trust he’d been building finally started to pay off. “I’m not doing as much as I was the first three years. But that’s only possible because of the work we put in at the start.”
Why the middle years matter
Research shows that about 63% of tech startups fail within five years. The numbers can look daunting, but they also show something important: if you make it to year five, your chances of lasting success increase dramatically.
That’s because staying in the game gives founders the chance to build the key elements for success that can’t be rushed in the early days:
- Trust: clients, partners, and investors believe in what they see over time.
- Pattern recognition: each challenge you survive makes you more prepared for the next one.
- Compounding assets: processes, reputation, and networks inevitably grow in the background.
One study found that resilience and persistence are the strongest predictors of survival past the five-year mark; often more than funding or market timing.
In other words, making it through those first few unpredictable years isn’t just about surviving; it’s how you build the foundation that makes everything easier later on.
The gift of not knowing
Viktor believes that what helped him most at the start wasn’t experience, but the lack of it. “The lack of understanding what you’re getting into is the biggest gift any entrepreneur has. If you knew what you had to go through, you would probably never have started.”
That early optimism gave him the courage to keep going when others might have stopped. Even if it was a little naïve, it gave him time to learn, experiment, and eventually build traction.
Making it through the hardest years
The first few years can test any founder’s patience. Progress feels slow, and it’s easy to wonder if things will ever click. Viktor calls it survival until “year five, six when it all starts coming together.”
For founders still in that stage, he offers some perspective:
- Look for progress in more than revenue. Relationships built, systems created, and lessons learned are all small wins that add up over time.
- Treat setbacks as training. Each failed pitch or lost client teaches you something that will make the next one easier.
- Plan for endurance. Whether through savings, side income, or a strong support system, give yourself enough runway to keep going. You will know best, but we recommend at least 3-6 months’ worth of expenses.
The payoff
High-growth founder stories often steal the spotlight, but Viktor’s experience highlights a different achievement worth recognising: staying dedicated and making it through.
Reaching year five isn’t down to luck, it’s evidence that the foundations you’ve been laying are strong enough to hold.
What you gain at that stage is less flashy, but more important: the payoff of all the unseen work that’s been building in the background.
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