There has been an age-old question that is long debated and discussed far and wide: Are entrepreneurs a special breed of people born into this world with the innate need and drive to succeed that the rest of the humanity lacks? Or are they created through education, mentorship and experience? What makes up an entrepreneur for him to become successful? These are the questions I want to answer today by describing you the anatomy of an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship has been there for many years but for most people, they find it hard to define properly who and what an entrepreneur really is. It is because there has been a big disagreement as to whether an entrepreneur is born or made.
But is there such a universal agreement whether these entrepreneurs are made or born? Does entrepreneurial DNA even exist? For starters, entrepreneurs are born since there are some people who were able to create new business ideas which are presently recognized as successful businesses yet these people never get any education or guidance on how to be an entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are also made since there are entrepreneurs who rose to success after they studied and finished entrepreneurship courses including degree programs and diploma offered by universities and colleges.
What is an Entrepreneur?
Entrepreneur is a French word that means an enterpriser. Enterprisers are people who undertake a business or enterprise with the chance of earning profits or suffering from loss. Entrepreneurs are people who make use of a venture capital to finance and start a new enterprise. They also assume the financial risks which come with owning, operating as well as managing an enterprise.
Entrepreneurs can come in several varieties and they have the tendency to create jobs and develop breakthrough innovations. This is the reason why entrepreneurs are considered vital for a robust and stable economy of a country. While most consider entrepreneurs to be dreamers, charismatic leaders and visionaries, not all entrepreneurs actually share these traits.
Many entrepreneurs are individuals marching to their own drums. They are people who have the determination, perseverance and drive to bring opportunities and ideas to life. Typically, entrepreneurs have a communicable and clear vision, a genuine passion for their chosen areas of interests, the solid motivation of taking their vision to the market and the steadfast perseverance to go on and continue despite all the setbacks and obstacles that life throws their way.
Without a doubt, entrepreneurs are horses of a completely different breed. They are mavericks with determination and vision to create a company which will take this vision to market.
As a group, entrepreneurs want to be the architect who takes full control of their destiny. Their inspiration comes from the dream of launching their very own business ventures and their drive is the identification and exploitation of high potential opportunities for business. They are often obsessed with every single aspect of the area of expertise that they chose. Entrepreneurs have the itch of creating a brand new life, becoming their own boss, following the path they paved and shedding all the constraints of the 9 to 5 office world.
Entrepreneurs are moving ideas which are usually generated by an instant flash of inspiration and are often overlooked by other people. Entrepreneurs have the ability to change directions with a snap of a finger once conditions evolve.
They can tolerate uncertainty, navigate transitions and balance continuity together with change. But the most important thing is that entrepreneurs are tenacious. This is really a trait that defines the anatomy of an entrepreneur. They can follow projects from start to finish and they never give up easily even amidst the toughest of times and challenges.
What’s Behind a Successful Entrepreneur?
Despite the current situation of the economy in many parts of the world, entrepreneurship remains to be a booming industry. Startups and small businesses are and will continue to serve as the backbone of every economy. With this, it is just to give a big shout out to all customers, family and friends who either aspire to be entrepreneurs or are thriving as one.
However, it is a must to keep in mind that there is a stark difference between succeeding as an entrepreneur and wanting to become one. Everyone can start a company but this is a totally different story to build a startup from scratch and bring it to success.
Below are some of the things that stand behind every successful entrepreneur:
Support
Successful entrepreneurs have a strong support network. Remember that no entrepreneur will be able to do it all by him/herself. It all starts with the very conception of entrepreneurship. You have to be able to sell your ideas to your own family and circle of friends before anyone else. More than anyone else, they have the ability of poking holes in the ideas you got, raise questions that you probably haven’t answered yet or tell you that they lack a clear idea of whatever it is that your startup business plans to accomplish.
Following this initial pitch, you will find out that there is still more groundwork that you have to complete. If you successfully sell your business model to them, then, you will be more than ready to take that next step and present to future associates, prospects, clients, business partners, investors and banks (for your financing needs).
As part of the support team of an entrepreneur, it is crucial to have a role model who will be able to act as a figure of inspiration and influence. Never go through the hardship of struggling to reinvent the wheel if you can always raise questions and learn from other people who have taken the same journey. To be a successful entrepreneur means having a good understand of what made the entrepreneurs before you successful and adopt these tactics. Having strong support and a large network will prevent entrepreneurs to fail and put all the chances on their side to succeed. In total, there are at least 34 characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
Business Mindset
The lack of the right business mindset is often the very factor which can make or break an aspiring startup company. Most entrepreneurs form startups simply because they are not employed. They have the ideas but they lack the motivation to keep things going. For an entrepreneur to be successful, he must be driven and he needs to have the capacity to think innovatively and strategically in order to take things to the next level and transform a mere hobby to a thriving business. Having the right mindset is definitely deep inside the anatomy of an entrepreneur.
No matter if you’re building a business with a long-term focus or you’re already planning an exit for your business, having the right mindset is crucial. For you to become a business owner, you will need to stick to all your visions and create a strategy on acquiring income and using this to further improve and grow your business. You have to document your milestones, processes and the things that you hope and wish to achieve in the future. These will then serve as your guide every time you have some questions during your innovative journey. This way, you are going to be armed with all the necessary information that will back up the statements you’ve got.
Investment Capital
Every business will start with surmountable expenditures. You should invest in your business so that this will reach its fullest potential in the niche it belongs to. For this reason, you have to ensure that your company has sufficient funds in order to outlive the earlier stages of your business and either you gain a positive net profit or reach the threshold of breaking even. The lack of funds can rashly close down even the most potentially successful businesses.
You don’t have to be rich to start a business though. Indeed, it’s now possible to launch your own business with less than $1,000.
For the savvy entrepreneurs, see to it that you plan out all of your expenses in advance as well as plan on having sufficient money to run and manage your company at a lost for the first several years. You have to spend carefully and wisely. You also have to annotate how, with every expense, your company is going to grow and bring in profit.
High Risk Assessment
Eventually, it is a must to have a good understanding of the risks and come up with well informed and educated decisions. As the owner of a startup, you have to able to accept every trial of uncertainty and be fully prepared for the multitude of results and outcomes. There is a general rule of thumb which you will often hear from entrepreneurs and it is about planning for the best and preparing for the worst.
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What is the Anatomy of an Entrepreneur made of?
Based on statistics, average entrepreneurs are males in their late 30s who work in the construction industry. However, by now, it is easy to see how such figures can be quite misleading. This is basically because, as you have learned earlier, successful business owners and entrepreneurs can come in virtually all sizes and shapes.
They can be as young as 9 or as old as 109. They can be male, female, poor, rich, people who left school at the early age of 13, people with several doctorates, and they can come from all ethnic backgrounds, religions, countries you can ever think of. There is a large diversity in entrepreneurship. But despite the differences, they have a single thing in common and that is the serious drive to make things happen as they want them to.
So, what are the personality traits and characteristics which make entrepreneurs who they really are? If the traits below sound exactly just like you, chances are you have the perfect anatomy of an entrepreneur and can make a great entrepreneur yourself!
Confidence
More than anything else, you have to be confident to get through even the toughest of times. And mind you, there are definitely going to be hard times along the way if you will work for 14 hours a day. Sometimes, it might seem that you lost all of your life savings and you still don’t get any customers at all.
You must have deep emotional reserves as well as a solid inner confidence in yourself as well as your business idea for you to get through all these tough times (Because tough times there are in every entrepreneur journey).
This confidence will also let you approach the right people you need, from suppliers, to commercial partners, target customers and lucrative clients. It is your confidence that will give them the assurance that you know exactly what you are doing and encourage people to work with you. Your confidence is going to be an indispensable asset in any presentation or pitch you have to make.
If you have any doubts about your confidence, don’t worry as there are different ways for you to improve it. There are a lot of entrepreneur affirmations that can boost your confidence as well as website tutorials and self-help books out there meant to help you improve your self-esteem.
Determination
Starting and running your own business can be an incredibly challenging work and this is often associated with constant setbacks, complications and frustrations. You should be determined to successfully pull yourself through all these hurdles. You have to be completely prepared to put in amazingly long hours every single day of the week, months and even years.
This determination is something that will keep you looking for the best deals and contacts for your business. This is also vital to forge commercial partnerships with people that you want to. This perseverance is going to prove so much about you and encourage the rest of the people to put their trust in your ability.
Determination is in the anatomy of every single successful entrepreneur. A strong determination is what will help you plow on searching for the right marketing technique, sales strategy and business model that will take your business to greater heights since these things often take years to perfect and refine.
If you don’t have determination in bringing your business to success, you will seriously have to ask yourself if it is really right for you to start a business in the first place.
Passion
As an entrepreneur, you will have ups and downs, no matter what. You will need to stay motivated during the down times if you want to be an unstoppable entrepreneur. When you talk about being passionate in your business, it doesn’t mean that you will be an emotional romantic and fiery hot-headed person. it only means that you must have a strong belief in the business that you are building, that the core idea behind it genuinely excites you and that every time you discuss what you are doing to other people, it is obvious how much you are into the new business and you are determined to make everything work.
The passion for your business idea combined with the ability to communicate it is what will get investors, staff, customers, commercial partners and banks more interested in your idea. This can be an amazingly convincing entrepreneur anatomy trait which can help you close deals and bring in more customers.
Your passion is also the one thing which will motivate your suppliers and staff when times get tough, especially since you have to inspire them to continue doing their best to make everything happen.
My advice: focus on what you are passionate about. Either you can build a successful business out of it and worse case scenario, you will have great fun practicing a hobby and this might bring you unexpected new skills. For instance, I played Poker for years and now it helps me with entrepreneurship.
Action-oriented
Even the brightest ideas are going to be worthless and futile until you actually do something about them. You must be a serious go-getter to make all aspects of your business take place. A true entrepreneur is a kind of person who will just get on with things instead of spending time sitting around and just talking about them.
However, you need to be able to carefully structure your action. Choosing to leap in just for the sake of it can be quite foolish. You have to come up with clear and definite paths of action for making your business idea a reality.
People’s person
As far as businesses are concerned, everything is about relationships. In order for you to be successful, it would help a lot if you are the type of person who can establish rapport with ease and is not afraid to start a conversation. Being a people’s person is really a personality trait, which is part of the anatomy of an entrepreneur. Empathy will help your business! How to train this? You could start with philanthropy and see how it helps with business and empathy.
Also, you need to form a relationship with your customers and encourage them to choose to do business with you for the reason that they like you. If people like you, this will also increase their loyalty to your business which is an important tool which can help in puling you through even the darkest of times or if a new competitor starts up around the corner.
Ability to see the bigger picture
You will always face setbacks every now and then when you run your own business. You must be the type of person who has the ability to see the bigger picture so that the challenges will not bring you down. In addition, you need to view strategy, growth and finances from a more holistic point of view for you to plan weeks, months or even years in the future But, don’t get lost into dreams or unrealistic visions, though.
Having a vision is an invaluable trait for your business planning and budgeting and for the general survival of the business.
Not afraid to fail
When starting a business, as an entrepreneur you must assume that failing is part of the journey. When you worry about failure, you will never be able to start your business. More than anything else, you must have the willingness to fail if you truly want to be successful. Getting rid of your fear of failure will give your confidence and risk taking ability to a massive boost. After all, when you don’t fear the worst option, you can always give it a go.
You must strive to eliminate fear not only of your business being a failure but also of a crucial contact who chose to turn you down or a client who decided not to do businesses anymore with you. When you always worry about these things, you will end up stressed out a lot which can then rob you of your confidence.
More importantly, don’t forget that you get to learn best from the mistakes you make in your business. Instead of fearing them, you will be much better off if you choose to embrace them.
Risk taker
The best and most successful entrepreneurs are the biggest risk takers you will ever meet. Take note that with no risk, there will be no reward. It means that you have to grab an opportunity every time you see one and forget about your fear of failure.
Risk-taking is totally part of the anatomy of an entrepreneur but with this being said, entrepreneurs are people who take calculated risks. Their actions might seem flippant but you can be sure that they are going to do the Math inside their head to always ensure that they will be getting the highest chances of success when they take that risk.
Just a tiny bit of faction of business owners today manage to turn into full-blown entrepreneurs, the kind who can run chains of businesses in every corner of the globe. You can always have them as your inspiration to keep pushing yourself and also pushing your ideas always a bit further.
Financial thinker
Successful entrepreneurs always think of the bottom line and profits. When you are not focused on making more money or probably just breaking even, you will not be able to have your business for a long time and simply suffer from a cash drain instead.
While the ability to calculate the figures quickly can be of help, this is not really something imperative. What is important is for you to always take work out the profit margin and costs on the things that you sell and buy and deduct or add these from your budget.
It is far more important to think through your financial decisions with care instead of doing things quickly. Being able to manage your budget is key.
Opportunity getter
This is a trait that is not often talked about but being an opportunity getter is the real secret to being able to determine new customers, market gaps, new product possibilities, and once you become a full-fledged entrepreneur, new opportunities for business. Spotting opportunities usually go hand in hand with optimism together and with the capacity of taking calculated risks.
This can help you a lot in finding more inventive ideas for sales, marketing, partnership and public relations. If you feel like this aspect requires work, just take a look at how the bigger companies spot new opportunities as well as how they capitalize on the trends and target their efforts on advertising. You can also read books on how businesses were able to develop creative and new ways.
You will soon find out that when you are an opportunity spotter and getter, you will always come up with great ideas and you will often see how the business and products can become more popular and efficient. Being able to discover, catch and get opportunities is really an important characteristic of the anatomy of an entrepreneur.
To sum-up, what composes the anatomy of an entrepreneur?
The anatomy of an entrepreneur, same as the anatomy of a great digital marketing campaign, is not a simple one. Being a successful entrepreneur is not a flat ride or a walk in the park. There are many things involved, things that are more than what meet the eyes.
Media always talk about successful entrepreneurs but they only show you the tip of the icebergs. They actually don’t show you all the struggles, setbacks, hard work, sacrifices, disappointments, failures and challenges they faced before becoming successful. There are so many traits, which define the anatomy of an entrepreneur but the most important ones are passion, risk taking, opportunistic and determination. These 4 characteristics are essential to entrepreneurial success.
Growth Hackers is most likely one of the best marketing automation agencies, we accompany entrepreneurs to help them succeed in their enterprise. If you have any questions about how we can help you, just contact GrowthHackers and ask us.
6 Comments
This is a wonderful researched writeup. I’ve been blessed immensely through this piece of paper.
Jonathan, this is an incredible post. It’s such a beautiful grace to read it.
Thanks and best regards
Danielle Alice Desanges Aucéane
Thanks for sharing.
I must thank you for this inspirational content. To totally understand the components of an entrepreneur now. Thanks again.
Greatly insightful content. Educative indeed.
Loved this!
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