Rome wasn't built in a day.

Patience is a virtue.

Amazon started as a bookstore in a garage.

You can repeat the proverbs a thousand times, but the message doesn't really sink in. Entrepreneurs are prone to it they want change and progress. That's why, against the odds, we start businesses and create new products and services. But even if our rational brain tells us that good things take time, the emotional side screams for overnight success. Founders have mass market desires and unicorn dreams.

It's about uncertainty. To be patient in business, we must accept a certain degree of uncertainty – an indefinite time during which nothing is guaranteed; when we're working hard, we're likely to give it our all, and the ROI is unclear.

I launched the first version of Form Iot in 2006. It took nearly two decades to grow it from one to 660 employees; from zero to 25 million users worldwide. Patience enabled our slow but steady growth and momentum. But it has been challenging. In a speed-obsessed startup world, I often had to remind myself of the cold, hard benefits of strategy PATIENCE. If you need a reminder today, here are the advantages of a more deliberate pace in business growth.

Connected: Patience is the secret to increasing your profits

Holding the reins for the long term

In the early years, I lived in Brooklyn Heights. At sunrise, I'd head to the local Starbucks and work for a few hours on my startup idea, a drag-and-drop web forms company, before spending a full day at the office in Manhattan . When I finally started a company with one (me), I needed it wear all the hats — product design, UX, marketing, customer service and more. I learned every aspect of the business inside and out – until the hats started to wear on me and I knew it was time to grow the team.

How did I know it was time to hire? When I realized: A) a specialist in a certain role could do the job better than me; and B) we had their entire first year's salary in the bank. But those early days were a crash course in every aspect of the business. It wasn't obvious then, but in hindsight, I can see that it made me a stronger entrepreneur. When it came time to hire, I knew what I was looking for.

I also had complete control over our company and long-term vision. If I wasn't one bootstrapper, I would have been under pressure to scale and respond to investors. The growth slowly allowed me to stay firmly behind my original vision: developing products to make life easier for our users, whether it's an online form or more cutting-edge products like spreadsheet builders or PDF editors.

Again, it was not easy. I had to make sacrifices, such as moving back to my home country, Turkey, to cut costs. But for a long time, I could maintain full creative control over the company, which is why I became an entrepreneur in the first place.

Encouraging creativity and collaboration

The benefits of patient management trickle down to teams, in terms of creativity and collaboration. David Sluss, professor at ESSEC Business School in France, respondent nearly 600 professionals and found that when leaders demonstrated patience (as reported by employees), self-reported creativity and collaboration increased by an average of 16%. Not only that — productivity increased by 13%.

Stress can be a motivator. The pressure of short sprints, like hack weeks, can lead to bursts of creativity. But leaders who are obsessed with immediate results stifle creativity.

The creative process has two types of motivators – external and internal. like Harvard Business Review notes, the latter is much more essential. So how can leaders cultivate self-motivation? At Jotform, our teams work on cross-functional teams. Each team is an independent unit. They set their own goals and deadlines. They generate creative projects and solutions that they share with colleagues during weekly demo days. As extrinsic motivators inevitably emerge – job security, compensation, etc. – allowing teams to pursue their true interests, manage deadlines and challenge themselves, creates intrinsic motivation.

For leaders, the key is to focus on the essentials, from KPIs to expenses. Don't rent out the big office with all the bells and whistles if you don't have to. That way, you give team members the wiggle room to self-direct the rest.

Connected: In the age of the instant, here's why leaders must learn the art of patience

Making employees feel heard

There is also a strong case for patience on an interpersonal level. By that, I mean don't rush interactions, but really paying attention about the people you work with. It takes effort. Echoing the sentiment of David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, This Is Water, requires you to turn off your default setting and be present for people; putting yourself in their shoes. In my experience, this kind of mindful attention is contagious, even in the office. Employees respond to her. They walk away from unhurried conversations feeling heard. They feel appreciated and how explorative shows that when employees feel valued, revenue increases.

Being present for people is not just about the bottom line. Returning to Wallace's essay, it can change your daily experience of life for the better. But it's also true that slowing down and listening to team members is a form of strategic patience. It requires an upfront investment, but reminding yourself of your ultimate goals—smooth, steady growth—will hopefully serve as motivation when your willpower inevitably wanes.