Do You Have the Stuff of an Entrepreneur?
Written by Jeff Reid, Associate Director of the WT Enterprise Center. For more information about the WT Enterprise Center visit www.IncubationWorks.com.
A while back I read an article entitled, “What is The Stuff of an Entrepreneur?” by Jim Hatch and Jeffrey Zweig. The article outlined five characteristics that seem to be common with successful entrepreneurs. Interviews were conducted and data collected from 50 rapidly growing firms in the greater Chicago area. It was observed that the majority came from middle to upper middle class families. Although some of those interviewed became entrepreneurial at an early age others pursued their business ideas at various other life stages. Many of the entrepreneurs interviewed were somewhat average in other aspects of their life such as sports and academics. Most, if not all, exhibited the following five personal traits which motivated them to incur personal risk in order to start their own business.
1. Risk Tolerance – The founders were not adverse to risk as many of them “maxed-out” their credit cards and incurred other personal debt in order to start the business. In some cases the founders appeared to enjoy the risk they were taking and somewhat lost interest when things were stable.
2. Desire for Control – The desire to control their own destiny and be the decision maker appeared to motivate many of those interviewed. Many had worked for other companies and were not happy when having to answer to others. In general they had strong personalities and a high degree of self-confidence.
3. Ambition/Desire to Succeed – This trait was present in most of the founders but did not appear to be important to all of the entrepreneurs. The success of their business was taken very personally. Many were relentless in the pursuit of success and were constantly thinking of ways to improve the business.
4. Perseverance – In the face of setbacks most displayed a strong will to succeed. This may be best illustrated by those that started businesses that either failed or were not very successful, but started again.
5. Decisiveness – A willingness to make decisions was exhibited, even when they needed to be made quickly and often times alone. Mistakes when made were not dwelt upon but rather energies were spent on moving on.
Do you have the Stuff of an Entrepreneur? Possession of these five characteristics is not a guarantee for a successful venture but the lack of them will make success very difficult to achieve.
