Others may develop their entrepreneurial spirit later in life. They likely work through their early years to earn money for an education and then work at a good job with a good company. They usually don’t appreciate entrepreneurship until much later, and probably develop the characteristics of an entrepreneur gradually.
Take a look at the following characteristics of an entrepreneur and see if you and entrepreneurship are a good match. Be honest with yourself, this is not a test—I would even suggest you get a close friend to go through each characteristic with you and see how well you fit.
Here then, are the characteristics of an entrepreneur. See how well you match this list:
1. Motivation.
Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? Since starting a business is extremely hard work and the prognosis for success quite low, why do you want to start a business? How motivated are you? Just because you lost your job recently is not necessarily a good reason—unless you have been thinking about starting a new business for some time. Are you a self-starter? Your motivation must come from within—there will be no one to give you direction, schedules, objectives, or assistance when you falter. You will have to motivate yourself to “do it all.”
2. Obsession.
This is a big step up from motivation. The highly successful entrepreneur Mark Cuban once said, “… the first requirement of a person starting a business is that they must be obsessed." His second edict is that "…if they have an exit strategy they are not obsessed.” Do you constantly think about starting your own business? Do you lie awake at night visualizing yourself running your business? Do you pass up that vanilla latte so you can put another few bucks into your startup fund?
This is perhaps the most important characteristic of an entrepreneur and is where the wannabes are separated from the doers.
3. Perseverance.
This goes hand in hand with your obsession. Even though you may be obsessed, are you committed enough to stick with your dream through hard times…mistakes, plans that never materialize, elusive customers, employee problems, long and longer yet hours, and the million other things that can rise up and block your road to success.
An entrepreneur is made of special attributes—perseverance being one of the most important. Do you have what it takes? Regardless?
4. Planning.
Perhaps this characteristic should be called “visualization,” because you need to “see” what your business is going to become. Then you need to write down all the details of your visualization—in great detail. It doesn’t matter where or how you write it, you just need to write everything down.
Unless you will be looking for investor capital, you really do not need to worry about creating a “business plan.” But, for your own benefit, you do need to write down every detail about how you are going to make your business successful. Then as your dreams change, simply update what you have written.
5. Knowledge.
Do you have the core knowledge to successfully perform whatever activity your new business requires? Can you build, or oversee the building of your product or service? Are you specially trained to perform whatever service you intend to provide? How about your business acumen?
Much of this knowledge can be obtained as you go along, but you do need some special knowledge about your product or service, and you should have a basic knowledge of business. One of the more basic characteristics of an entrepreneur
6. Fear.
Are you afraid you might fail? If your business failed, how would that affect you? Failure is a part of entrepreneurship. You will have ideas that fail. You will have projects that fail. You will have days where everything goes wrong. Your business may even fail! But, these are events—they are not you.
Thomas J. Watson Sr., founder of IBM, was once asked how to become more successful, and his response was. “… have more failures.” Success is usually just one step beyond failure. Every entrepreneur has fears…but If you are going to become a new business owner, you will have to embrace your fears and rise above them.
7. Sacrifice.
Can you make the sacrifices necessary to build your business? Can you completely change your lifestyle, and replace activities with family and friends with work on your business instead? It is easy to say this is not a problem, but it is quite another matter to actually do it.
Think this one through very carefully, and visualize a life with few, if any, of your enjoyable activities for at least the short term—maybe longer.
8. Temperament.
This is important when dealing with all the people you will come into contact with while building your business. If your temperament is more like Seinfeld's “Soup Nazi,” it would be better to not start a business where you had to deal with many people.
Have you ever supervised employees? This is much different today than in the past, because expectations are different, and if you don’t have the temperament to deal with difficult employees, you probably should not start a business that will require employees.
9. Risk Taking.
Becoming an entrepreneur requires taking risks. You will be risking money—yours and most likely others as well. How would you handle losing all the money you invested in your venture? Could you? You also may be risking a steady well-paying job for an unknown future. No matter how much you dislike your current job—it does provide a regular income.
Don’t’ think you can ever go back, because once you have tried the freedom of entrepreneurship, you can never go back to a 9 to 5 job…at least not and be satisfied with it.
10. Decision Making.
Are you a good decision maker? As a startup entrepreneur you will not have anyone to make decisions for you. There will be a “million” things that require quick and incisive decisions to be made. You will need to make those decisions “on the spot.”
Also, this is not just in the area of business issues you know about and are comfortable with. You will have to make quick decisions in areas of business where you likely have never had to make decisions before.
11. Family Support.
Of all the characteristics of an entrepreneur, this could be the most important if you have a family. This is especially true if you have a spouse and children. You need to sit down and have a discussion with any and all family members that may be affected by your decision to become an entrepreneur.
How difficult will it be for you to have these discussions? Do you think you will get 100% support from your family, especially those that may be impacted the most?
12. Selling.
This is the last, and also one of the most important characteristics of an entrepreneur—the ability and drive to sell. Any business owner/CEO who does not make sales calls, or sell to customers, is unlikely to become a successful entrepreneur.
Whether products or a service business, you still must have sales, and initially you may be the only salesperson in your new business. Can you measure up?
Which of the above characteristics of an entrepreneur do you have, and which ones do you lack—if any? Time now to get busy developing any characteristics of an entrepreneur you may be lacking, and move forward into the world of entrepreneurship.
You can start the process by reading the next report in this entrepreneurship section, titled How to Become an Entrepreneur.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Are you a natural entrepreneur—ready and willing to take on the risks of entrepreneurship? Or, is starting a business something you think you would like to do, but the idea seems somewhat daunting right now? 
