Why patience can be a competitive advantage

1-minute summary

In this episode of his CEO diary, Christoph Standl talks about something that has become ever more important to him in twelve years as an entrepreneur: patience. At first, patience doesn't sound like a typical entrepreneurial trait – many associate entrepreneurship with speed, growth, quick decisions. Of course pace matters, but some things simply take time: building a company, building trust, developing a good product – and sometimes a good idea needs years until the right moment arrives. At Tourismus Interaktiv there were many moments when he would have liked to be faster: setbacks, delays and, with Corona, a situation nobody was prepared for. In such moments it is easy to question strategy and even vision – and that is exactly when long-term thinking helps. He kept asking himself whether his long-term conviction had changed, and the answer was no: digitalisation went on, demand kept rising, and today artificial intelligence accelerates much of it enormously. What changed was sometimes just the timeline. He thinks of a line by Oliver Kahn: "Weiter, weiter, immer weiter" – on, on, always on – not blindly, not stubbornly, but learning, adapting and taking the next step. Just because something takes longer than planned doesn't automatically mean the direction is wrong. Patience is no excuse for doing nothing; it means continuing to work, to learn, and accepting that some developments can't be forced. In a time when many expect quick results, the advantage often lies in staying with it longer than others. His question: for which goal do you need not more speed, but more patience? Big changes often begin with small daily steps.