10 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

For many of you, who are working on starting or growing your own business, understanding the qualities needed to create success is extremely helpful.

The author, president and founder of Palo Alto Software, Tim Berry shares his wisdom in his blog article on the 10 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs.

10 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

1. There's a lot of talk about P-words: passion, perseverance, and persistence. I mistrust all three. A lot of unsuccessful entrepreneurs have them just as much. You have to have some variation on these traits, but you can have all three and still fail. You and I both know people who never made it and never stopped trying. My favorite P-word in entrepreneurship is planning, but that's just me. Stubbornness is good too, even without starting with P.

2. I like empathy, as in understanding how other people think and feel about things. Empathy leads to understanding what the people you sell to want, what they need, how they think, and how to best reach them. It's hard to imagine somebody building a company without being able to put themselves in the buyer's state of mind.

3. A sense of fairness. For dealing with vendors, customers, and employees.

4. Transferable values. This is closely related to the sense of fairness. I just don't see people building businesses without believing in what they're doing.

5. Willingness to work hard, shoulder to shoulder with other people. Cliche, but true: the harder I work, the luckier I get.

6. Knowing what they don't know. To me that's much more important than what you do know.

7. Listening carefully. Shutting up.

8. Vision for what they can build. Imagining a happy future. Dreaming.

9. Making mistakes. You have to deal with failure. Keep pitching.

10. Jumping viewpoints, like from short- to long-term in an instant, mixing those viewpoints together. That's like dribbling, keeping your eyes up while managing the ball at your feet.

So there's 10. Everybody likes lists of 10. Go ahead. Add some more. Make my day.

Written by Tim Berry, from his blog, 'Planning Start-Up Stories'
timberry.com

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