You don’t need an advanced degree or the perfect pedigree to become a successful entrepreneur. Yet the club of successful entrepreneurs is pretty exclusive.
What gives?
Instead of fancy pieces of paper or gold-plated connections, successful entrepreneurs tend to have certain personal traits in common.
The good news about these traits is that most are not innate, but rather can be learned or trained over time. The bad news is that this learning or training process (often involving both) happens over time and requires a great deal of fortitude. Not everyone is cut out for it, to put it mildly.
Then again, if you’re wondering whether you have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, you’re already asking the right question. Here are nine ingredients for success that you should begin working toward now to set yourself up for a productive, profitable business future.
1. Relentless Energy
This is not a trait shared only by serial founders like Sky Dayton or Elon Musk, who seem to grow more energetic with the passage of time despite working harder than most.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s a trait — better described as a capability — that can be learned with remarkable ease.
The secret lies in discovering what motivates you, and perhaps what you fear as well, and using that information to keep pursuing your goals. With that fire lit under you, you’ll find you have far more mental and physical energy to tackle the challenges of the day, week, month, and year.
Yes, even if you have to work nearly around the clock to remain on top of everything.
2. Curiosity About the World Around Them
Some of the world’s finest entrepreneurs are famous for their curiosity. Often, this manifests in unusual hobbies or areas of expertise that at first seem unrelated to their “day job” of launching, running, and investing in businesses.
For example, the late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner, was an amateur architect whose sometimes controversial ideas helped advance the field. Munger never gave up his job at Berkshire Hathaway to join or even start an architecture firm, but he most definitely enjoyed his hobby.
This isn’t to say you should take time away from running a startup to pursue a serious hobby on the side. Who has the time for that? The point is that taking interest in the world around you often produces unexpected, and positive, results.
3. Productive Habits
Many entrepreneurs are famously productive. But there’s a subtle difference between “good” and “bad” productivity. The latter can result in a decline in the quality of your work and eventually cause burnout, while the former builds on itself and makes everyone around you better.
Which sorts of habits count as “good” productivity? Anything that keeps you operating efficiently throughout (and beyond) the workday. Regular exercise, a well-balanced diet, distraction-free work environments, and so much more.
4. The Drive to Get a Little Better Every Day
You may already be aware of the concept of continuous improvement. It has been formalized several times over to inform scalable business processes that increase productivity, quality, output, and other key performance metrics.
Any enterprise you run should draw on this principle for its own processes. However, you should also strive toward continuous improvement in your personal capacity. You should feel and act out a drive to get a little bit better every day, and to never be quite satisfied that you’re doing the best you possibly can.
5. A Solid Understanding of Basic Business and Accounting Concepts
Entrepreneurs have no need for business genius — that’s what hired experts are for — but they do need to have a healthy understanding of how businesses work, because those experts can’t stop them from making terrible decisions when they’re not looking.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: If it’s taught in an undergraduate, 100-level business administration class, you should probably be familiar with it. That means most of the basic legal and accounting principles that support private-sector businesses.
6. A Strong, Trusted Team of Advisors and Key Employees
Successful entrepreneurs know where their strengths lie and where they don’t. They know which jobs are best done themselves and which should be delegated to others who can do them better.
For jobs that others can do better, entrepreneurs turn to trusted, diverse teams of advisors and top employees. Advisors serve as sounding boards and “checks” on bold new ideas, while top employees have their own areas of expertise and are nearly as good at delegating as their bosses (you).
7. Insight Into Your Chosen Industry and Markets
One thing most entrepreneurs can do very well is assess the competitive landscape and future opportunities presented by their chosen industry and markets. This is why many founders choose to launch companies in industries they have firsthand experience in; otherwise, the learning curve can be daunting.
8. Tolerance for Temporary Setbacks
Finally, most entrepreneurs have a remarkable ability to tolerate setbacks. They know that true failure only happens when you give up forever. They also know that temporary setbacks can be productive if they demonstrate that a chosen course of action doesn’t actually work.
In other words, if you’re willing to learn from failure and do things differently after it happens, you have this critical trait shared by many successful entrepreneurs.
What’s Your Secret to Success?
If you don’t see all these ingredients for entrepreneurial success in yourself right now, don’t fret. You’re capable of developing them. Nearly anyone is.
However, delay serves no one. Not you, not the team you’re building, not your future customers. If you have a great idea for a business and believe you’re the right person to realize it, it’s best to strike while the iron is hot.
Many entrepreneurs do exactly this. While they might not feel one hundred percent ready to build something on their own at this very moment, they believe they have what it takes to develop the necessary skills as they go.
In other words, they believe in themselves.
Maybe this is the most important of all ingredients for entrepreneurial success. Without belief in yourself, you really don’t have much. With it, you have everything, including a great shot at building something that stands the test of time.
