Dating : How Fear of Embarrassment Turned into a $12.3 Billion Dollar Valuation

For entrepreneurs and founders, challenges are a part of what we face each day. It’s inevitable. It’s a part of life. It’s a part of business.

If business were that easy, we’d all have a few extra million dollars in our pockets.

Anything that’s ever been worth doing will take effort. And that’s the thing — business isn’t meant to be easy. By building a business, following your passions, you’re creating something that doesn’t exist. You’re creating something out of nothing. That, in itself is a challenge.

What if Ben had decided to give up? Can you imagine if, at 9 months, Ben had decided that it had already been too long? Would Pinterest still exist?

The underlying lesson of Ben’s story is to remind you to not give up so easily on things you’re passionate about. The moment you give up, you lose the chance to make it in the first place. You’ll never know whether or not you might’ve succeeded.

The only thing we can do is believe in ourselves. We have to believe, for the sake of what we’re passionate about, that we can push forward and overcome our obstacles. To be determined and believe in our own abilities. The obstacles we face today are building blocks towards tomorrow’s success. From overcoming these obstacles, we gain perspective, perspective into building a better future for ourselves, perspective into creating a better story to tell.

The key is finding passion for what you do. You don’t have to love what you do. Just be passionate about the problem that you’re solving, why you’re solving it, and the potential of the solution. When you build a business, you’re in it for the long haul and if you’re not passionate about what you do, you’ll give up for all the wrong reasons. — Jon Lee

Overnight success is possible. Just don’t be surprised if it takes years.

Pinterest’s valuation is at $12.3 billion as of 2018.