Most entrepreneurs are people who strongly believe in their product or service. They feel very passionately that their contribution might make a difference in the world. As far as personalities go, the people who turn towards entrepreneurship are not motivated by power, money, or success. They share a belief that their lives have meaning. This can be a good or bad trait in an entrepreneur since their passion might work against their business acumen.
Passion is great for spreading enthusiasm about an idea. It gets both employees and investors excited. But you also have to have business experience or at least hire someone who does. A great slideshow presentation will only get you so far. Be realistic about how a business actually runs. If you love to do something, the reality is that as CEO, you will be doing less of the actual thing that you love. You can’t just run a bakery if you love baking if all you know is baking. That scenario will fail for multiple reasons.
You also need to take a realistic look at how much time will be invested in new business. You will be spending the majority of time away from loved ones, at least until you turn a profit. This could easily take years. Make sure you have your short-term and long-term priorities reasonably managed.
If you think you might have what it takes to become an entrepreneur, the first thing to think about is whether you want to start a business based solely on something you love or whether there’s an actual need for it. You need to be able to put your ego to the side and look at your idea through the lens of a real-world scenario. Not only do you need to do the market research required to determine viability, but you also need to analyze who your competitors are. This can be difficult since you are looking at not only present-day competition but also potential ideas that are around the corner that might make yours obsolete overnight.
Another thing that successful entrepreneurs do is to give back to the community. Depending on the size of your business, this may be on a small or large scale. Contrary to popular belief, there’s no need to wait for your company to be a huge success before you start helping others.