Winners vs Tourists: Are You Really in This Game for 10 Years?

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Read time: 3 minutes.

Welcome to the 184th edition of The Growth Elements Newsletter. Every Monday and sometimes on Thursday, I write an essay on growth metrics & experiments and business case studies.

Today’s piece is for 8,000+ founders, operators, and leaders from businesses such as Shopify, Google, Hubspot, Zoho, Freshworks, Servcorp, Zomato, Postman, Razorpay and Zoom.

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A lot of people are in tech right now like tourists: here for the trend, here for the acronym, here until it gets hard.

But markets, teams, and even customers are starting to tell the difference between builders who are all-in and those who are just passing through.

Why This Matters Now

• The easy money phase is over.

• Surviving now requires years of execution, not just a clever launch.​

• Buyers and candidates have options. They want to bet on people who will still be around in three, five, ten years.

• Founders themselves are asking, quietly: “Do I actually want to be doing this for a decade?”​

Signs You’re a Tourist (Harsh but Useful)

• You chase every hot theme: web3, then SaaS, then AI, without building depth.

• You care more about the announcement than the usage graph.

• You’re optimising for fast exits in a market that’s clearly slowed down.

What 10-Year Builders Do Differently

• Pick problems they’re willing to live with for a long time, not just pitch well once.

• Build skills and systems that compound: distribution, hiring, decision frameworks.

• Design companies that can survive cold seasons, not just bull runs.

Why This Resonates

People are tired of hype and short-termism.

They want to follow and work with operators who are clearly committed to a craft, a market, a customer problem.

If that’s you, you don’t need louder branding. You need to show your staying power in how you operate, not just what you post.

That's it for today's article! I hope you found this essay insightful.

Wishing you a productive week ahead!

I always appreciate you reading.

Thanks,
Chintankumar Maisuria