What Makes Someone a Good Entrepreneur?

Why is entrepreneurship so fascinating? Can anybody become an entrepreneur? Fascination with entrepreneurship is not a recent trend. Literature that explores the traits of successful founders dates back to the 18th century. With the passing of years, more studies tried to find correlations between entrepreneurial personality traits and successful ventures. Despite their findings, nothing is set in stone. Personality traits might have a say in matters of entrepreneurial success, but other key success factors have a role in ongoing accomplishments.

Entrepreneurs can build something where others fail to see anything. Some say they create success out of nothing, but as philosopher Parmenides said ‘nothing comes from nothing. There’s a long list of essential ingredients that venture enthusiasts need to make up solid projects. Curiosity and openness to new places, endeavors, people, and ideas are basic traits of an entrepreneurial attitude. Yet, other factors are important pieces of the puzzle. However, not all ventures are the type of Silicon Valley startups. Most operate at the level of small businesses or even student projects. Not to forget the contexts and circumstances where each of them operate.

Determination

Determination pushes anyone with a defined goal to keep up on the chosen path. When persistence is combined with achievable and desirable goals it will be possible to stand against pressure, doubts, and whatever challenges that might arise.

Risk-taking

Innovation involves risks. Risk indicates various perceptions that vary from financial reputation risks. However, risk-taking does not mean diving completely on the business path. It revolves more on detailed planning about every step. The types of risks that a business should plan include economic, security and fraud, compliance, financial, competition, operational, and reputation risks.

Innovativeness

Innovativeness and risk-taking make a perfect duo. Anything that will require people to change the way how they think or do things involves risk. Experimentation and creative ideas are applied to bring new technologies and practices or to improve existing ones. However, innovation does not specifically mean technological improvement or major inventions. Anything can be innovated to become at the same time more beneficial and less harmful to society and the planet.

Other traits include healthy self-esteem, thirst for knowledge, acceptance of failure, good money management skills, flexibility, networking skills, ability to persuade, sell, and promote, discipline, etc.

A beautiful quote by Rumi goes “What you seek is seeking you.” It just hit differently from the other generic quotes you might find on social media. It’s like a mixture of mystical support with the law of attraction.
If the traditional path to financial success does not appeal to you, entrepreneurship could be an unconventional approach to achieve your life purpose.

 

Learning Entrepreneurship

There are big differences between the traditional business model and entrepreneurship. The latter gravitates towards purpose while the former focuses more on profit. This difference is an indicator of success. Those ventures that aim at providing solutions for concerning issues tend to get more support compared to just business-for-profit.
Maybe not anybody can be a successful entrepreneur, but everyone must have the opportunity to give it a try. This is the reason why every person must have access to entrepreneurial education.
There can be thousands of people, no matter their age, who could create great sustainable companies in their communities if they had the chance to gain the right mindset.
This is one of the goals of the Entrepreneurship Campus, to provide access to entrepreneurial training to everyone. Thousands of people from all over the world have attended the training offered by the Campus. Meanwhile, many have joined the annual Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition challenge with their ideas and projects.
You can join too if you have an idea that contributes to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals or that solves a problem in your community.

Read also: Are You Cut Out to Be an Entrepreneur?