Steven Spielberg was 27 when he made Jaws. They had a $3.5M budget and 55 days to shoot the movie.

They ended up spending $9M and taking 159 days.

The studio had taken a chance hiring Spielberg and he felt the pressure. He stayed up every night with a writer to re-write the script for the next day’s shoot. His more experienced cast and crew doubted his ability and started to turn on him.

Worst of all, the star of the show quit after day one. The massive mechanical shark that was set to thrill audiences broke on the first day of shooting.

Without a shark to captivate audiences, Spielberg needed to find a way to build suspense in the film. He used tactics to show the audience the presence of the shark without having to show the shark itself. This resulted in increasing the suspense and driving Jaws to the top of the box office.

We look back at Jaws and assume Spielberg had the Midas touch from day one. But the fact is that Jaws could have easily been his first and last attempt to make a Hollywood blockbuster. Having his film so close to the brink of disaster taught Spielberg lessons that he has carried with him through every film of his career.

That’s why I’m so intrigued by the origin stories of founders and entrepreneurs. It’s easy to look at their current success and assume they had it figured out from day one.

The fact is - nobody has it figured out. We flail, make mistakes, lose money, chase bad ideas and come close to quitting. Sometimes the mechanical shark that was supposed to carry the movie breaks on day one.

So don’t look at where people are today. Look where they started, what they went through and what they learned along the way to get the full picture of what is required to ‘make it’.