The Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

It's not just the technology or the moment. Leadership, team-building and lots of other intangibles turn out to be more important in driving success than the more well-known tangible factors. Dan Pink interviews entrepreneurship researcher John Worrilow on the shared characteristics that appear to differentiate successful entrepreneurs from the rest:

John Warrillow has been studying entrepreneurs for fifteen years. First as the producer of a syndicated radio show, then as the founder of a research company that surveyed ten thousand business owners each year, and now as an angel investor and columnist for both Inc.com and CBS NEWS.

As it happens, he has a terrific new book out this week — so I asked him to describe what he thought are the three most important habits of highly successful entrepreneurs.

Here’s John:

1. Resourceful

When they couldn’t get a loan to start a yoghurt store, Aaron and Michael Serruya signed a two-month lease on a kiosk. They learned what flavors sold best, how to merchandise and market while pocketing the profits. With the money they saved that summer, they established a real store, called it Yogen Fruz, and it would become the largest yogurt chain in the world. What the Serruya brothers did – and what I’ve seen most successful entrepreneurs make a habit of – is improvise. Saras Sarasvathy, a professor at the Darden School of Business, has discovered that entrepreneurs think more like an “Iron Chef” than a methodical planner. They size up the resources they have available and develop the best outcome.

2. Competitive

Entrepreneurs look for ways to measure themselves against their peers. That’s why the Inc 500, the list of the fastest growing businesses in the U.S., is such an amazing franchise. It’s also why groups like Entrepreneur’s Organization ($1 million + in sales to join) and Tiger 21 ($10 million + in liquid assets to apply) go out of their way to communicate their membership qualifications.

3. Action Oriented

I, along with forty other entrepreneurs at a workshop, took Kathy Kolbe’s test which measures you on the dominance of four personality traits. A handful of us were “Fact Finders” (seek knowledge before acting), one or two were long on “Follow Through” (good at finishing tasks) but virtually everyone of us were “Quick Start” (start lots of things) which just goes to show that entrepreneurs have a tendency for perpetual motion. They are happiest when bushwhacking — trying lots of things to see what works.