When Founders Crave “Making It” More Than the Thing They’re Building

There’s a pattern I see over and over: founders who are desperate to make it, but have absolutely no compass for what they actually want to build.

They chase opportunities. Hype cycles. Shiny tactical advice. Funding deadlines. Growth benchmarks. But they don’t pause long enough to ask:

Why this? Why now? What’s the real problem I am here to solve? And that’s why most startups never find a true north star.

According to the Small Business Administration, roughly 20% of U.S. small businesses fail within their first year, and about 50% fail by year five. The top reasons aren’t always lack of capital (shocking, I know); there is a lack of market need, confused direction, and product–market misalignment. When what you’re building isn’t rooted in a problem you truly understand or are passionate about, it’s nearly impossible to sustain the grit needed when things go sideways.

I know this because I didn’t build Skinergy Beauty out of a vague desire to “be in skincare.” I built it because the problem was in my bones (ahem, my face). I was led to create the company with this invisible pull words fail me to describe.

I lived the aftermath of acne, not just the breakout phase, but the stubborn hyperpigmentation that lingered long after the pimples faded. Dark spots that wouldn’t go away. Messaging that dismissed my tone of skin. Dermatologists shrugs. Social media gloss. And millions of people quietly suffering the same thing. It was personal; Skinergy NEEDED to exist.

And for me, that wasn’t a trend. It was a problem begging for attention…

The name Skinergy didn’t come from a branding workshop. It came to me in a dream, literally. Two words fused together, like an insight that had been waiting to be in the beauty industry. “Skin” + “energy”, because this work wasn’t just surface-level. It was about how we feel in our skin, how we show up in the world, and how we heal both physically and psychologically.

This was a labor of love first. A business second.

We weren’t built around a catchy color palette or a moment on socials. We were built around real stories, real emails, real frustration, real tears, real relief. Every formulation decision came from listening to myself, to customers, to data, and to something deeper: the lived experience of people who were unseen by the beauty industry.

Most founders won’t say that out loud, they want the growth story, the funding narrative, the exit strategy. And sure, there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things. But when you want success more than you want the thing, your compass goes missing. Because success rooted in obsession and in purpose, survives the moments when the numbers lag, ads flop, supply chains stall, or algorithms change. Passion doesn’t replace strategy, but it sustains the strategy when the path isn’t obvious. It is the “thing” that keeps a founder going.

I stayed in the room with Skinergy longer than I ever expected, but not because it was easy, because I believed in the mission so fiercely I couldn’t walk away without seeing it through in a way that honored every person who trusted us with their skin frustrations. And that’s the difference between building something that matters and building something that sounds like it might matter if it works out. On its 8th year in business, Skinergy is “unofficially” closed, but it was successful; hey, statistics say so, not just me.

Most businesses fail not because the founders weren’t smart, but because they were building something they could walk away from when it got hard.

Love keeps you there when it’s 2 a.m.

Love keeps you there when a launch flops.

Love keeps you there when the data says pivot, not quit.

If you want to build a company worth surviving, start with the thing, not the outcome.

Ask yourself:

What problem won’t let you sleep at night?

What community are you actually listening to, not just talking at?

What part of this work would you fight to defend even if nobody else cared yet?

Because if your answer is only about making it, you’ll never know what it is you’re building. And that’s the part of creating a business that feels the most satisfying.

Creating from a deeper meaning, a sole purpose to fulfill whatever it is your heart and gut are nagging you to create.