I came across a local magazine on Entrepreneurship last Saturday. One of the articles which caught my attention was on the habits an entrepreneur should have. To be honest, I could not remember everything there…….so…… i’ll just merge what I am able to remember, with my own personal opinion on the habits an entrepreneur should have.
Creative - An entrepreneur needs to be creative and innovative. His/her ability to create something new, or to modify something old into something useful will be very crucial in the world of entrepreneurship. The main point here is, be creative to provide value to the customer.
Good leader - A successful entrepreneur needs to be a good leader. He/she needs to know how to handle the staff as well as the business/products. A good employment policy to retain the company’s best people might be the entrepreneur’s only advantage over his/her competitors.
Good communicator – The ability to deliver the right idea across in a right way is always an important skill to have, not only to an entrepreneur but to other people as well. Being a good communicator will help the entrepreneur in sales/marketing, promoting teamwork, effective discussion with the staff, etc.
Balanced life – Being an entrepreneur means leading a very busy life. You will most probably be very occupied with your business, your employees, your customers, etc….but you should never ever abandon your personal life – your family and friends. Your family and friends will always be there to support you when your business is not in a good condition. Therefore, don’t turn away from them….neither should you turn away from your business. Strike a balance.
Hardworking - Hardworking is the next attribute an entrepreneur should have. An entrepreneur needs to work hard to improve himself/herself constantly, to come out with new ideas, to try many different things, etc.
Persistent - Persistent is the next nature of a successful entrepreneur. An entrepreneur should always have the “never-say-die” attitude. Failing once or twice, or even 99 times (like what Thomas Alva Edison did) is no big deal. The main thing is to keep carry on until you’ve succeeded.
Being an entrepreneur is nevery easy. Being a successful entrepreneur is perhaps 10x more difficult than being a normal entrepreneur. It might take a lot more than having the 7 attributes above, in order to be successful in the world of entrepreneurship.
Again, I might’ve missed out some essential attributes an entrepreneur should have. Do feel free to give me feedbacks and post up your comments if you have anything to add. 
Thanks.
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June 11, 2007 at 7:07 pm
gabrielbcn
Although the list is nice and interesting, there’s an essential quality that I miss: the ability to see in others how they can help and complement him and then the ability to delegate (if he is going to grow)
good post
Gabriel
June 12, 2007 at 12:17 am
Alvin
Thanks Gabriel. I missed the delegation part and also the ability to judge one’s potential effectively. Both are pretty important attributes to have for an entrepreneur-wannabe
Thanks again.
June 21, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Young Entrepreneurs of America
Great post. It is a very interesting list. As a full-time entrepreneur and part-time professor / mentor I have had a hard time coming up with a short list. Mainly because successful entrepreneurs have so many great qualities and they tend to differ from one entrepreneur to another. It seems that no two entrepreneurs on the planet have ever been successful for the same reason.
Having said that, the one quality that I have seen most often that is not on your list is the instinctive ability to leverage resources. Most successful entrepreneurs tend to bootstrap their ventures and they never pay full rent…ever. They have learned how to be miserly with cash and will barter, trade, borrow & beg before they have to pay cash for something. They have become very adept at wisely saving cash and leveraging other critical resources.
June 21, 2007 at 2:35 pm
A Key Entrepreneurial Attribute: Leverage « Young Entrepreneurs of America
[...] 20th, 2007 · No Comments A fellow entrepreneur recently posted a short list of 7 Key Attributes an Entrepreneur Should Have. It is a very interesting list. It includes Creative, Good Leader, Good Communicator, Balanced [...]
June 21, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Alvin
Hey there,
Thanks for your comment. Yeap, I must agree with you that a good and successful entrepreneur is normally “stingy”. Reason being they are usually short on cash…. well, that’s entrepreneurship to you. Whenever they can, they will try to minimize the cost….or the cash flowing out from their business.
That’s why someone who likes to spend a lot…will never be a good entrepreneur.
December 7, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Abhishek
hi there alwin…yaa i beg to differ on ure point of a successful entrepreneur not being a big spender. Agreed that he must allocate his available capital in an optimum way to reduce wastage but then again, there are a lot of successful entrepreneurs who are big spenders. Maybe it works only after youve reached a certain stage in your business but given the example of Vijay Mallya(UB Group, Kingfisher), Richard Branson(Virgin Group)…these guys have a gala time spending….
thanks..
regards
abhishek
December 7, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Abhishek
my bad gt ure name wrong..Alvin
December 9, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Alvin Lim
I think different people have different views. Do you know how Richard Branson started his empire? He did not get all those wealth overnight. He struggled a lot in the beginning and he was not a big spender until he became very rich. Now that he’s so rich, he has the ability to spend.
But he’s no longer a pure entrepreneur.
January 23, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Abhishek kumar
hi alwin, In my point of view a successful enterpreneur are good spender. But those they are good spender they have got an established bussiness or good capital from there care takers. But the persons they have earned themselves they are finding very hard to spent even a single penny without necessity. When they feel there is a genuine requirement of money then only they will spent there money on that. So, again its is a very contradictory issue and matter to have an open forum disscussion.
March 26, 2009 at 7:13 pm
suresh patel
Entrepreneurship is all about taking risk for unknown, handling emotions of uncertainty and thinking of all possibilities to make an idea a reality.
I really enjoyed the posts.
Thanks
-suresh patel, management educator, INDIA