like that at all.
I’d be the one to call up and apologize, and that was just part of the job.
Most people were very reasonable, and they would understand—things go
wrong. I would use the analogy of a cell phone (that was when cell phones were
really getting hot). I’d say, “Look, we’ve all got cell phones or car phones.
Sometimes they just screw up and they go wrong. And this is the same kind of
stuff; this is pretty advanced technology and sometimes things go wrong.”
But we did occasionally lose a client that was just irrational, saying, “My
boss told me to fire you because you made this mistake.” We’d typically give
them a credit for the whole thing, and we’d say, “If you ever want to come back,
we’d love to have you back.” And many did.
Livingston: What advice would you give to someone who had never started a
startup but was thinking about it?
Gruner: I went to an executive conference several years ago in New York. One
of the most interesting sessions had about six chief executives, all of whom were
very successful, and the moderator asked, “If you could describe in one word
the key to success for your company, what would that word be?” Very few
answered in one word. Some of them said integrity, or communications, and
things like that. The last person to talk was Michael Dell, and he said one
simple word: persistence.
Ron Gruner 445
I can relate to that. Things never work out right the first time. You’ve always
got to do it two or three times to get it right. And things always go wrong. So
persistence is the key to success.
I had seen that in my career. I had seen that in computer design projects. I
had seen that through my whole life. And so that word is the best single advice
I can give to entrepreneurs. The key to success, if you had to sum it up in one
word, is persistence.