I've been an entrepreneur most of my adult life. Recently, on a long business flight, I began thinking about what it takes to become successful as an entrepreneur and how I would even define the meaning of ‘success’ itself. The two ideas became more intertwined in my thinking: success as an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial success. I've given a lot of talks over the years on the subject of entrepreneurship. The first thing I find I have to do is to dispel the persistent myth that entrepreneurial success is all about innovative thinking and breakthrough ideas. I've found that entrepreneurial success usually comes through great execution, simply by doing a superior job of doing the blocking and tackling.
But what else does it take to succeed as an entrepreneur and how should an entrepreneur define success?
Bored with the long flight, sinking deeper into my own thoughts, I wrote down my own answers to send to my kids. Here's what I came up with:
The ‘Top Ten List’ for a budding entrepreneur
* You must be ‘passionate’ about what you are trying to achieve. That means you’re willing to sacrifice a large part of your waking hours to the idea you’ve come up with. This passion will ignite the same intensity in the others who join you as you build a team to succeed in this endeavor. And with passion, both your team and your customers are more likely to truly believe in what you are trying to do.
* Great entrepreneurs ‘focus’ intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing. This focus and intensity helps eliminate wasted effort and distractions. Most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation, i.e. companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing a few things very well. Stay focused on the mission.