Once more unto the breach...

It was a surreal moment for Mr. Westergren, who founded Pandora, the Internet radio station. For most of its 10 years, it has been on the verge of death, struggling to find investors and battling record labels over royalties.

That is from a great story in today's NYT about the great website Pandora.  It shows how fortunes can change dramatically, depending on circumstances and the external environment.  And the bottom line is the value of perseverance, and the importance of going to Plan B when Plan A doesn't pan out. Too much of the popular perception of entrepreneurship is dominated by the big overnight successes - eBay, Amazon, and Google, for example. But the reality is that most success stories are long in coming, and occur only after many failures - and an almost irrational determination to succeed, despite the odds.