By Danielle Tate, CEO of MissNowMrs.com
It seems that America has hit the tipping point of curiosity about entrepreneurs. Television shows like ABC’s “Shark Tank” and CNBC’s “The Profit” are raking in huge viewer numbers and fueling the nation’s infatuation with entrepreneurs and startups. This naturally leads most Americans to wonder, “Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?”
Finding the answer to that question is not as simple as it may seem. It involves soul-searching, critically evaluating your strengths and weaknesses, understanding what you want in life, and knowing the basic components most entrepreneurs possess. As in all things, there certainly isn’t a cookie cutter entrepreneur, but there are four things that Danielle Tate, entrepreneur and author of Elegant Entrepreneur: The Female Founder’s Guide to Starting & Growing Your Own Company, believes are essential to becoming a successful entrepreneur:
Passion for your idea and the business you build around it is vital to your success as an entrepreneur. Great ideas are conceived by many, many people and go nowhere until someone passionate has the idea and pours their energy, intelligence, and resources into making that idea become a reality. Case in point: how many times have you seen a product or service and have kicked yourself because you or someone you know already thought of some version of it, but did nothing? To be truly successful you must not only have a good idea, you need to believe down to the fibers of your being that it is a good idea and that it must be built by you.
Vision, not to be confused with stupidity, is another essential component of entrepreneurs. It is a commonly held belief that entrepreneurs are willing to take greater risks than the average person. While there are large risks associated with building an idea into a business, successful entrepreneurs have the vision to see their steps to success. They don’t blindly spend their savings on a wish or a hope. They use a different lens than most to look at risk. Entrepreneurs have vetted their idea, studied their market, and mapped all of the steps necessary to build their product or service. They have calculated the risks involved and weighed it against the opportunity. While no one has a crystal ball and pivots happen frequently, vision is what sets entrepreneurs apart and sets them up for success.
Tenacity. There are so many times you will be told “no” and experience failure as you prove your idea, research your market’s receptiveness to your idea, and build your product or service. You will be pushed to your limits of creativity, energy, finances, and relationships. If you do not possess the internal motivation to do whatever it takes to make your idea succeed, you will not.
Humility is not always widely associated with entrepreneurs, but the serial entrepreneurs who continuously create earth-shatteringly successful startups are humble. One can only get so far on ego and good luck before the bottom drops out of your business. Having the ability to pinpoint what you do not know and the humility to ask for advice and help is what separates the good from the great in the world of entrepreneurs. Also, most successful entrepreneurs understand that they are not solely responsible for every success of their business and give credit to the team that supports them.
Danielle Tate is a name change expert, on-camera personality, writer, author of a top rated Google newlywed blog and a bridal magazine contributor. It was a 13-hour struggle to change her name after getting married in 2005 that prompted Danielle to leave her medical sales career to develop and launch MissNowMrs.com, a premier online name-change service created to simplify the name-change process for brides and newlyweds nationwide.
