entrepreneurshipWhile I was reading through another forum post (“How Much Learning, How Much Working?”) on recommended-reading for wrapping your head around basic entrepreneurial skills, someone pointed out that starting and sustaining a business is “seen as glamorous but many people do not have the personality, skills, or dedication to be successful entrepreneurs”.
So my question is, what is the ideal “personality” of a successful entrepreneur? And, if one does not have this personality, how might they work towards it?
I do not believe this to be an opinion-based question as it should be a matter of statistics… some are simply better entrepreneurs than others.
TL;DR:
Ron Conway has been doing angel investment for 20+ years so it is safe to assume his word is true in this matter.
Paul Graham: Ok so lets talk about specific individuals. Ben Silverman, for example, what traits did he have that made you invest?
Ron Conway: Ok, for him it was his rifle focus on the product. Now keep in mind rifle focus on the product also applied to Larry, Zuck, Dropbox, Airbnb, it applies to every successful founder. They were rifle focused about the product to the point where they were being rude and a lot of them get accused of being arrogant because they are so focused on the product. Because other people, we say hey will you come to this event or will you get interviewed by the New York Times, and they’re going like, why would I ever want to do that when I could make my product better, because guess what, I went from 10,000 users last month to 25,000 users in the next month and in the next month I can get it to 50,000 to 100,000 user, why would I want anyone to distract me with anything else?
In MBTI personality types, the NT types are the ones that are ideal for entrepreneurship. Which is roughly about 10% of the population and this category includes about 5 times more males than females.
Quick examples:
Paul Graham: So Ron is famous for investing in founders and so I wanted to ask you, when you say you invest in founders, what that means is you invest in people with certain traits. Can those traits be acquired or is it the case that some people have it and some people don’t? Because these people are all interested in starting startups right. So I’m going to try and get this stuff out of your brain and blow it out on to the audience. That will be helpful to them.
Ron Conway: Without being sloppy. Umm well I have said before, entrepreneurs are born to be entrepreneurs. And once you are an entrepreneur you’re a serial entrepreneur and you're probably going to start companies for the rest of your life or if you're like Zuck or Larry Page it might be the only company you start. But you are an entrepreneur for life. And I think most entrepreneurs do correctly self-select. And I think that entrepreneurs are born, have to be born with some of the basics.
Paul Graham: So which traits have to be inborn and which can be learned?
Ron Conway: So the basics I think would be you have to have a hell of a work ethic. You talked about it at your Stanford class. You have to be ambitious, you have to be aggressive, and you have to be tough. Because starting a company is the hardest thing on earth to do. I don’t think people realize that until they do it. Since I’ve watched thousands of entrepreneurs do it, I know how hard it is. Plus I started my own company, Altos computer in the 70's, so I know from personal knowledge how hard it is and I started another couple of companies as well.
Paul Graham: And so you think the driven part has to be inborn?
Ron Conway: For sure. You can't learn to be ambitious and be driven. Obviously you have to be curious, you have to be intelligent. I think being a founder is like a vocation. But if you have those basic skills where you're determined, you're tough, you have a huge work ethic, you're completely rifle focused, then there’s other things you have to learn. You have to learn to hire a management team. You have to learn how to manage. These things you're not born with. These things, you have to want success so badly that you learn how to manage. You learn how to find a management team. You learn how to recruit people and then spread your vision and motivate them to be just like you and be fanatical about your business.
Paul Graham: So how can they tell? How can these people, you know it would save them a lot of trouble if you tell could tell them now whether they are going to succeed in starting a startup. How can they tell if they are driven enough?
Ron Conway: Well I mean are you willing to work 24/7. The really great entrepreneurs are 24/7. The word moonlighting is not even in their vocabulary. I mean if they are dating somebody or they are married, they warn their spouse that they are not first in line. That this company dream is first in line and that you have this vocation. It's like being a priest or a nun that your duty is to your company. No, it has to be that fanatical and if you look at all the successful entrepreneurs they are that committed about it. That is a hard commitment, but once you are willing to make that commitment then it solves the work ethic check off. If you have that commitment then your passion is probably infectious. It probably means you can in fact find other people and make them as excited about your idea as you are.
Paul Graham: So you can use it.
Ron Conway: So you have to be a good communicator. You've got to be able to excite other people.
There is an interesting section in a book called “The Smart Startup: A Better Approach to Online Business for Entrepreneurs” by Sonya Zhang and Neal Cabage (Available to read on Safari E-books, just grab a free 30 day trail) that I feel covers this question quite well. Below is an extract from the first chapter in the book, “Why Become an Entrepreneur”, which discusses this topic;
The field of psychology has produced an interesting body of research around the topic of personality and pairing it with career choices. Carl Jung first introduced the idea of psychological types in the 1920s. Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers later added to these ideas, creating the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which assigns one of sixteen possible personalities based on a series of self-assessment questions. A generation later, in the 1950s, David Keirsey took up the task of applying MBTI and the related theories to determine appropriate societal roles and career choices. The resulting personality assessment test, known as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, is a common tool used by career counselors today.
It then goes onto discuss how Jung identified 4 fundamental personality types with Myers-Briggs expanding on this to make a total of eight personality types and 16 different combinations. These personality types are;
The book gives a thorough explanation of the details of each personality type so I really suggest you read it but the general agreement is that the ideal personality types for an entrepreneur are ENTP and ENTJ.
It does however, state that other personality types are suited and have more impact in different roles. For example an ENTP personality type might be more ideal for the technology start up in Silicon Valley, focused on developing an innovative product.
Obviously you can succeeded in a start up without these personality types but it gives you a good idea on perhaps where you would be best suited in a Start Up venture.
And, if one does not have this personality, how might they work towards it?
With regards to this question, I believe it is a case of getting out there are practicing the area of yourself you want to improve on. Evaluate yourself and identify what you want to improve on and what you think you do and don’t do well within that area.
If you’re more of a technical person and aren’t very comfortable approaching people or speaking publicly, see if there is something at work or at school that you can get involved that has these types of activities involved in them. Try to really push yourself out of your comfort zone and before you know it, it will become second nature to you.
Hope this answers your question.
To me the main characteristics are:
Empathetic business sense: A flair for spotting problems that others have and are willing to pay to see go away. You won’t have a startup to create without this.
Fearless enthusiasm: Uncompromising enthusiasm with occasionally reckless dauntlessness. You’ll procrastinate without this – especially in David vs Goliath moments or when people you care about tell you “it’ll never work.” (In some sense, most startups fail before they’re even started.)
Charismatic leadership: A knack for convincing others to work for you, and a penchant for delegating tasks. You won’t scale, or not as well, without this.
You can make do without them – some get lucky, some fail, some muddle through.
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