There’s a moment, any time you start something new, when the novelty wears off and real life begins. Whether it’s a new relationship, a new exercise routine, or, yes, a new startup—at some point, the initial shine is going to fade away.

The exact timeline is slightly different for everyone, but the effects are the same: growth has slowed, and the early wins you achieved feel like they happened in another lifetime. Why are you doing this, anyway? Why didn’t you stay at your old job, in your old life, where things were safe and comfortable?

James Clear calls this “the valley of disappointment”—the phase when you’ve put in a ton of work, but have yet to see the results you’d expected. This is the point where most people quit. I’ve been there, too.

It’s true that pushing through takes a certain amount of grit, but sheer willpower is rarely what gets you to the other side. After more than two decades building Jotform, I've found that momentum isn't something you summon from within, it's something you create. Here are the strategies that have helped me keep going, even during the downturns.

Surround Yourself With Community

When I first started Jotform, I was living in a small apartment in an inspiring but cripplingly expensive city. As a bootstrapper, I was burning through money way too fast, so I did what aspiring founders have done since time immemorial: I moved back home. In my case, this meant heading back to my native country, Turkey.

For a while, I loved this period of building my business. The time I didn’t spend on Jotform I spent hanging out with my parents, who I hadn’t seen much while I was living in the States. It was there in Ankara that I released the first version of my product, and everything seemed to be on the up and up…at least, until it wasn’t. I was enthusiastic about Jotform, but I was losing momentum.

The truth is, I missed working with other people. I had made a few early hires and was pleased with how my business was going, but I wanted to be able to share it—the struggles, the wins, and everything in between. It was at this point that I decided to open my first office. It wasn’t much to look at—it was on the outskirts of town, remote enough that we’d often see cows wander by our conference room window. But it worked. I felt connected and energized, and my enthusiasm for what I was doing spiked accordingly.

My experience isn't unusual. According to a study from UCL's School of Management, 76% of founders report feeling lonely—a rate 50% higher than CEOs of established companies. That isolation has consequences: the research found it directly impacts founders' self-confidence, problem-solving and ability to sustain momentum over time.

Community doesn't have to mean a formal office. It can be a peer group, a cofounder or even a handful of people in a group chat who understand what you're going through. What matters is having people who reflect your progress back to you when you've lost the ability to see it yourself.

There’s a lot of evidence that celebrating small wins is good for morale. Harvard Business School researchers Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer call this the “progress principle,” which holds that of all the factors that can boost positive emotions, motivation and performance at work, nothing matters more than making progress. “Whether they are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress—even a small win—can make all the difference in how they feel and perform,” they write.

I’m an evangelist for celebrating small wins—in fact, I feel like calling them “small wins” is reductive. Wins of any size, especially in the early days of building a business, are what allow us to keep going. Ever watch a rock climber scale a wall? The big, grippy holds are satisfying, but it's the tiny nubs — barely enough to pinch — that keep you moving. Wins work the same way. Not every one will be a breakthrough. Most won't. But each one is a hold, and holds are how you get to the top.

Before Sam Altman was the CEO of OpenAI, he helmed the accelerator Y Combinator. His distaste for busywork—or what he calls “fake work”— was evident even then, attributing it to the slump that startups often experienced once they wrapped up their time at Y Combinator.

“The main problem is that companies stop doing what they were doing during YC—instead of relentlessly focusing on building a great product and growing, they focus on everything else,” he wrote .

Too much time spent on unimportant busywork can be lethal to motivation, which is why I advocate for avoiding it at all costs. Rigorously audit where your time is going, and if it isn’t directly adding value to your business, either delegate it or automate it.

At Jotform, I've learned to ask one question about any task that lands on my plate: is this the kind of work that only I can do? If the answer is no, it shouldn't be mine. The slog only gets tougher when you're carrying weight that can best be placed elsewhere.

Building a startup is tough. There will be days you feel bored, uninspired and that maybe you shouldn’t be doing this at all. But there are ways to fight through the tedium. Surround yourself with people who will lift you up when you feel down, celebrate every milestone and focus on work that really, truly matters. Trust me, you will get through it.