Are entrepreneurs born to be successful?

A recent academic study based on personality questionnaires focused on people who describe themselves as entrepreneurs. Researchers discovered similarities in them which highlighted that entrepreneurs were significantly more likely to describe themselves as having ‘intuition’ and ‘perception’ than others.

However, although there was a difference in the personalities between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, there were no differences between successful and unsuccessful ones. So you may be born to be an entrepreneur, but you have to work at being a successful entrepreneur.

In that case, what qualities do you need to develop to be a successful entrepreneur?

We’ve been looking at the thousands of articles about entrepreneurialism online to try and work out what the main characteristics of being a successful entrepreneur are:

A thick skin and gritted teeth

All business owners need to have a certain amount of determination, perseverance, tenacity, motivation and a very thick skin to deal with all the knockbacks that will happen. As well as a lot of confidence in your business or idea. Google, for instance, didn’t just happen overnight – the founders pitched their idea to a great many investors before they eventually found someone willing to put up the startup money they needed. And even then it took a few years after that for the idea to gain traction.

So if you’re hoping for that lightbulb moment, you have to be prepared to work at it. As Thomas Edison, the inventor of lightbulbs, himself said: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

A willingness to take risks

Whether it’s remortgaging your house, giving up secure employment, or embracing a completely different way of life, it is a big risk. In fact, entrepreneurs have to take risks almost every day – in setting up by themselves, they’re gambling with their own money so everything they do will have an impact not just on their business and their staff, but also on a personal level. The rewards of getting it right, of course, are more than worth it.

A ‘que sera sera’ attitude

However passionate you are about your original business idea, you need to have the ability to go with the flow, constantly look out for different opportunities and, most importantly, be willing to let go of ideas if necessary. Adaptability, flexibility and a willingness to innovate will take you a lot further than stubbornly sticking to your original idea, however good it was.

What we can predict with certainty is that if you surround yourself with other entrepreneurs in a co-working office space like ours, they will help you be more motivated and productive as well as providing you with a ready-made business network.

If you are looking for co-working office space in Hertford or Stoke Newington from which to run your enterprise, click here for more details of UOE Hubs.