What makes an entrepreneur, well an entrepreneur.
This is a question we get asked allot, early on in my career I shunned the term entrepreneur, as it unfortunately has a bad rep in this country (Australia) to celebrate the entrepreneur you really need to travel to the epicenter of new venture creation, The United States of America.
Over time however I've come to realise that the entrepreneur really is a different breed of person to you average (even hugely talented) employee. Its a difficult thing to put into words, but one of the best ways of describing it I've found is in Jack Welch's Book "Winning: THE ANSWERS". I encourage you to go and grab a copy.
In short he highlights these four main points that make an entrepreneur stand out.
--------------------------------
1) Do you have a great new idea that makes your product or service compelling to customers in a way no competitor can match?
Sometimes people are attracted to the lifestyle or entrepreneurs - control, autonomy the possibility of huge wealth, and all that - but they don't really have the blockbuster idea to make it actually occur. Real entrepreneurs not only have a unique value proposition for the market place, they are madly in love with it. They passionately believe they have discovered the greatest thing since gravity, and now all they have to do is sell it to the whole wide waiting world.
2) Do you have the stamina to hear "no" over and over again and keep smiling?
Entrepreneurs spend a lot of their time asking (and sometimes even begging) venture capitalists, banks, and other investors for money. Often they get a stick in the eye. Now, no one likes getting rejected, but entrepreneurs have a resilience not to be daunted by it. The best of the lot even get energized by the experience; hearing no only makes the get out there and sell their idea even harder.
3) Do you hate uncertainty?
If so, stop reading here. Entrepreneurs spend more time in blind alleys than stray cats, if not chasing dollars, chasing new technology or service concepts, not to mention everything else they need to build a business. If not in blind alleys, they're aboard a leaky boat on choppy seas - or put more plainly, they are often running out of money while betting on the unknown. If you're an entrepreneur, that actually sounds like, well fun.
4) Do you have a personality to attract bright people to chase your dream with you?
Early on as an entrepreneur, of course, you may work alone. But with any kind of success, you are going to need to hire great people whom you can't pay very much. To do that, you need the special talent of making people love your dream as much as you do. You need the ability to convert employees into true believers.
--------------------------------
Although like most attempts to encapsulate a fairly ethereal concept, this description is not perfect, I think its key that if you are considering starting out on your own, in a high risk, high growth venture, you need to be comfortable that you personify these four criteria.
Scott