TyroCity

Discussion on: Major themes that characterize entrepreneurs

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DIPA_DHUNGANA

A lot of people aspire to be entrepreneurs. However, the recent research by Failory (2018) reveals that 90% of the startups fail. It is because not everyone can handle the sacrifices, total immersion and heavy workload behind glamorized world of entrepreneurship. The common themes shared by successful entrepreneurs that describe their attitudes and ways towards thinking as acting as given by Spinelli and Adams are:

Commitment and Determination

Entrepreneurs live under huge, constant pressures. A venture demands lot of time, effort and loyalty as well as personal sacrifice from the entrepreneurs to make it survive, sustain and grow. So, they should be disciplined, able to commit quickly, tenacious and decisive.

Courage

Stepping up in the entrepreneurship journey is a courageous act. So, entrepreneurs need to be fearless experimenters, followers of moral principles, ready to accept conflicts and failures and face the risks, uncertainties and undesirable outcomes that may come in their way.

Leadership

Entrepreneurs start new ventures based on their ideas. But they cannot do everything on their own so they need to have a team and lead it effectively to make their ideas work. So it is important for them to possess the leadership traits like team building, practicing fairness, sharing responsibilities and acknowledging the experience, knowledge and effort of team members. They should be capable of inspiring others to move towards the shared vision.

Opportunity Obsession

In order to be successful, the entrepreneurs need to constantly monitor the changes in market to identify opportunities provided by changing patterns and capitalize on those changes. They need to be obsessed with value creation and enhancement to develop strategies, practices and habits that help to tackle the market-based problems and capture available opportunities.

Tolerance of Risk, Ambiguity and Uncertainty

It is not guaranteed that the entrepreneurs will get the desired outcomes and results from their venture. So they need to be prepared for tolerating the risks, ambiguity and risks associated with the project. They should be able to manage paradoxes and contradictions, tolerate uncertainty and lack of structure, handle stress and conflict, resolve problems and integrate solutions.

Creativity, Self-reliance and Adaptability

Innovation and ability to adapt changes are important to sustain in the ever changing business situation. The entrepreneurs should be non-conventional, open-minded, creative thinker, quick learner, change adapter, challenger of status quo and willing to learn from failure in order to succeed.

Motivation to Excel

Successful entrepreneurs are motivated intrinsically to compete and excel. They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses along with that of their competitors and create high but realistic and attainable goals based on that. They push themselves constantly to achieve that goals.

In my opinion, all of these are equally important. Absence of any one of these attributes may result in the failure of an enterprise. For example, if an entrepreneur is highly motivated, courageous, creative, committed and determined but is not prepared for handling the unpredictable circumstances and adjusting with the changes in business environment, even a small change in the environment in which it operates will make the entrepreneur lose his/her focus as a result of which the enterprise may fail.

All these qualities can be encouraged and developed over time. Consulting with the people who are successful in similar domain, mentorship and apprenticeship, analyzing the past experiences, being aware of personal and company’s strengths and weaknesses, brainstorming for additional insights, studying the processes of other companies of similar nature anf constantly updating oneself are the ways to develop these attributes. In addition, the attitude of learning continuously and taking everything that comes on the way with open mind can also be helpful in this.

References

Failory. (2018). The Ultimate Startup Failure Rate Infographic . Retrieved from failory.com/blog/startup-failure-rate 5

Spinelli, S., & Adams, R. J. (n.d.). New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century (Nineth ed.). Irwin: McGraw Hill Education.