The #1 most important personality trait of an entrepreneur(16thletter.com)
16thletter.com
The #1 most important personality trait of an entrepreneur
http://www.16thletter.com/2008/02/22/the-1-most-important-personality-trait-of-an-entrepreneur/
23 comments
Well said. 10 different entrepreneurs, will tell you 10 different things as the #1 most important characteristic.
That article written by Tony Wright comes to mind:"Every Piece of Startup Advice is a Lie (including mine)"
http://www.tonywright.com/2008/every-piece-of-startup-advice...
That article written by Tony Wright comes to mind:"Every Piece of Startup Advice is a Lie (including mine)"
http://www.tonywright.com/2008/every-piece-of-startup-advice...
And don't forget survivor bias! For any given "success trait", you can probably find more failed founders with it than successful founders. We just don't read about it.
See: Fooled by Randomness, one of my favorite books.
See: Fooled by Randomness, one of my favorite books.
I think success as an entrepreneur has to do with the number of failures one encounters, because the more you fail the more you learn about the user world. :)
I have researched this extensively through blog posts and articles posted here over the last year, and I have come to the conclusion that the #1 most important personality trait of an entrepreneur is the ability to have multiple, unrelated, and sometimes conflicting #1 most important personality traits.
Indifference to lists describing the most important traits.
Adaptability is obviously important, but I wouldn't put it at #1.
I would say "ability to take action".
It doesn't matter how smart, personable, determined, passionate, or adaptable you are if you don't take action. Until you do, you have nothing.
I would say "ability to take action".
It doesn't matter how smart, personable, determined, passionate, or adaptable you are if you don't take action. Until you do, you have nothing.
Luke asks:
Shoe - in your opinion, whats the best resource (other than shoemoney, of course) for affiliate noobies to learn how to get started and what are the best offers to get started with (sorry, that’s sort of 2 questions in one)?
Thanks!
ShoeMoney: I really dunno any site including this one that will teach people that much how to make money. They need to dive in and learn. Its so simple and costs nothing to start that people need to stop being lazy. No website will replace experience.
jim asks: Do you have a mentor? If so, who is it? If not, who would you love to be mentored by?
Thanks Jeremy!
ShoeMoney: I don’t have a mentor but there are a lot of people I have taken pieces from… seth godin, malcom gladwell, guy kawasaki. I am not a big fan of “mentoring”. I think more people need to do things for themselves and learn from there own experiences and not from the experiences of others.
Thanks!
ShoeMoney: I really dunno any site including this one that will teach people that much how to make money. They need to dive in and learn. Its so simple and costs nothing to start that people need to stop being lazy. No website will replace experience.
jim asks: Do you have a mentor? If so, who is it? If not, who would you love to be mentored by?
Thanks Jeremy!
ShoeMoney: I don’t have a mentor but there are a lot of people I have taken pieces from… seth godin, malcom gladwell, guy kawasaki. I am not a big fan of “mentoring”. I think more people need to do things for themselves and learn from there own experiences and not from the experiences of others.
Ability to take action / get hands dirty / learn
(If you think what's below is off topic, then make sure you've read the article and be sure to read all of the comment.)
The Clancy Brothers are best known as a seminal Irish singing group, but they started out as a troupe of actors that went to New York to become famous by putting on works of Shakespeare. The folk music craze was in full force, and they noticed that they were actually making more money renting out their venue to folkies than they were making by putting on shows, so they decided to get into the act themselves. They pretty were much like other folks who emulated the Weavers and other popular acts of the day, but since they happened to be Irish, the songs they knew were Irish traditional songs, and so they stood out and became international stars.
The Clancy Brothers are best known as a seminal Irish singing group, but they started out as a troupe of actors that went to New York to become famous by putting on works of Shakespeare. The folk music craze was in full force, and they noticed that they were actually making more money renting out their venue to folkies than they were making by putting on shows, so they decided to get into the act themselves. They pretty were much like other folks who emulated the Weavers and other popular acts of the day, but since they happened to be Irish, the songs they knew were Irish traditional songs, and so they stood out and became international stars.
Having been a struggling entrepreneur for the last fifteen years and having my share of spectacular failures and some occasional modest successes, I have learned to live by one simple rule, Conservation of Single Malt Scotch, which has served me well ... "If I don't drink too much on the way up, I don't need to drink too much on the way down."
Like many who have been entrepreneurs, I have learned quickly that entrepreneurship is the great equalizer. Everyone has an equal chance to success and equal chance to failure, irrespective of their age, education, family wealth and of course, cultural background and race.
In fact, the more that people tells us that it cannot be done or that it should not be done, it seems that the more enjoyable is the journey.
Like many who have been entrepreneurs, I have learned quickly that entrepreneurship is the great equalizer. Everyone has an equal chance to success and equal chance to failure, irrespective of their age, education, family wealth and of course, cultural background and race.
In fact, the more that people tells us that it cannot be done or that it should not be done, it seems that the more enjoyable is the journey.
I think that the most important trait is perseverance. You may be willing to change directions and adapt, but if you quit, you're done.
Completely agree. Courage to persevere when faced with adversity is what makes or breaks people and companies. Change and adaptability is great but what if it's a wrong direction?! Those who change directions whenever the wind changes direction shift focus quickly and almost always don't get the prize. People who change directions all the time are usually people who chase fads.
+1 for Perseverence. Definitely a necessary trait, more important than any other that comes to mind.
imho: #1 quality is "Burning desire to be an entrepreneur no matter what".
(definitely necessary. may be even sufficient.)
(definitely necessary. may be even sufficient.)
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> In her blog today, Penelope Trunk wrote that it really isn’t possible to know if your idea for a start-up is any good. I agree with her.
I think both of them are dead wrong.
Starting a company should come after the idea is evaluated from as many angles as possible and you have a confidence that the idea is good. Based on not just a gut feeling and a dream of being a founder, but on a research, planning and a feedback.
In this light the adaptability is hardly a #1 trait, the rationality, the sensibility and the patience are.
I think both of them are dead wrong.
Starting a company should come after the idea is evaluated from as many angles as possible and you have a confidence that the idea is good. Based on not just a gut feeling and a dream of being a founder, but on a research, planning and a feedback.
In this light the adaptability is hardly a #1 trait, the rationality, the sensibility and the patience are.
you can have a large degree of confidence that you idea is good, but you cannot KNOW it is good until you build it.
you cannot know anything for sure before it happens
These types of things always seem like saying that the key to being a good runner is to have strong legs. While this is an important part, being a good runner also depends on lung capacity and a whole host of other things.
To distill it all down to one thing seems a bit naive.
To distill it all down to one thing seems a bit naive.
Maybe naive and pointless, but it is "sound byte quality."
Like the myriad self-help/improvement programs that tout, "Do this and your life will be better. Your truck will start, your girl will come back and you'll find your dog..."
Oh wait, that's what happens when you play a country song backwards. That's IT. The answer to being happy is to play country songs backwards. To which it has been said that to every problem there is a solution that is correct, easily understood and wrong.
Like the myriad self-help/improvement programs that tout, "Do this and your life will be better. Your truck will start, your girl will come back and you'll find your dog..."
Oh wait, that's what happens when you play a country song backwards. That's IT. The answer to being happy is to play country songs backwards. To which it has been said that to every problem there is a solution that is correct, easily understood and wrong.
I have written extensively on this topic - What Makes Them Entrepreneurial here - http://www.adeologue.com/adeologue/what_makes_them_entrepren...
One of the traits I have mentioned is this adaptability attribute - http://www.adeologue.com/adeologue/2007/07/what-makes-them.h...
I am still interviewing few successful entrepreneurs and understanding what made them entrepreneurial. It's very important to learn these traits and develop those.
One of the traits I have mentioned is this adaptability attribute - http://www.adeologue.com/adeologue/2007/07/what-makes-them.h...
I am still interviewing few successful entrepreneurs and understanding what made them entrepreneurial. It's very important to learn these traits and develop those.
I hate this shit. It's like the self help shit that always gets posted here. Just a complete waste of time for all you aspiring entrepreneurs. This linkbait crap is to truth about entrepreneurship as Brittany Spears scabby anal warts are to beauty.
To someone knowledgeable on Asperger's syndrome (not knowledgeable in a saw it on slashdot and in Wired once way and think I'm an expert way, but knowledgeable in a could diagnose it accurately and debate the merits of the different diagnostic methods way), the different shit that ends up on all these different lists are all obviously related to Asperger's, in that they are positive aspects of the syndrome. Further, most or all of the people on PG's list of hero's clearly have strong elements of Asperger's or High Functioning Autism in their biography. Being a risk taking perfectionist with little to no desire for close family relations and an obsessive attention to small details, along with hyperlexia and extraordinary memory, is both the profile of an entrepreneur and aspergers syndrome. Further, one of the unique cognitive capacities of certain Asperger's people is an ability to synthesize original insights from diverse sources of seemingly unrelated information.
The character trait that Melissa describes is good to have. But, it's better and more fully understood as the atheoretic oreintation certain philosophically inclined people with Asperger's tend to demonstrate, than as a trait that can be considered in isolation.
If I was running a VC shop or a start-up hub, I would make damn sure to ignore shit like this, and instead read the book called The Genesis of Artistic Creativity. I'd make all the employees read it too, and then find ways to recruit people with desirable constellations of those traits, which are what people are actually but blindly talking about (without getting to the heart of it) with these psychologically unsophisticated linkbait analysis. In fact, everyone who takes links like this seriously should stop and read that book instead.
http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Artistic-Creativity-Aspergers-...
To someone knowledgeable on Asperger's syndrome (not knowledgeable in a saw it on slashdot and in Wired once way and think I'm an expert way, but knowledgeable in a could diagnose it accurately and debate the merits of the different diagnostic methods way), the different shit that ends up on all these different lists are all obviously related to Asperger's, in that they are positive aspects of the syndrome. Further, most or all of the people on PG's list of hero's clearly have strong elements of Asperger's or High Functioning Autism in their biography. Being a risk taking perfectionist with little to no desire for close family relations and an obsessive attention to small details, along with hyperlexia and extraordinary memory, is both the profile of an entrepreneur and aspergers syndrome. Further, one of the unique cognitive capacities of certain Asperger's people is an ability to synthesize original insights from diverse sources of seemingly unrelated information.
The character trait that Melissa describes is good to have. But, it's better and more fully understood as the atheoretic oreintation certain philosophically inclined people with Asperger's tend to demonstrate, than as a trait that can be considered in isolation.
If I was running a VC shop or a start-up hub, I would make damn sure to ignore shit like this, and instead read the book called The Genesis of Artistic Creativity. I'd make all the employees read it too, and then find ways to recruit people with desirable constellations of those traits, which are what people are actually but blindly talking about (without getting to the heart of it) with these psychologically unsophisticated linkbait analysis. In fact, everyone who takes links like this seriously should stop and read that book instead.
http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Artistic-Creativity-Aspergers-...
I think this is okay as far as academic learning and analysis goes. But a lot of times (not in this post though) people get into flamewars about which attributes will actually lead to success. If the "idea people" win out over the "implementation camp", no shit, the hardcore programmers amongst us are going to feel left out and start arguing for the opposite argument. If we say Silicon Valley rules and everywhere else is sub-optimal, Europeans are going to be pretty pissed.
But I think it's silly for anybody with attribute X to feel upset or left out because the latest "attribute discussion" decided, by popular vote, that attribute X will lead to failure. There is sufficient variation in attributes amongst successful entrepreneurs, that you don't need to make any grand changes in your lifestyle to succeed at this game. I.e. you don't need to switch from being a programmer to an idea guy, or vice versa. You don't need to move, or change industries, and so on.
I'm just saying that tons of people already have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and if they just think for themselves about what to do and ignore all the external discussions, they have a pretty good chance of succeeding.