THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET

“The scarcest, rarest, hardest energy and talent in the world to find is entrepreneurship. Call it rare salesmanship, call it genius business-model design, call it rainmaking, but whatever the case, America does not have enough to fight the coming global jobs war.”

—Jim Clifton, Chairman & CEO, Gallup

Entrepreneur: A person who harnesses innovation to create value.

Wantrapreneur: A person who is extremely unlikely to succeed at entrepreneurship due to a lack of focus, effort, or skill, but still wants to be seen as an entrepreneur.

We’ve seen the following scenario play out hundreds of times:

An entrepreneur wants to meet with an expert who’s been successful in a way that could benefit the entrepreneur. Of course, because the expert has been so successful, she’s also in high demand from many different people, most of which are better-known and thus far more important than the entrepreneur. To even get on the expert’s schedule, the entrepreneur must compete with public officials, executive leaders of fortune five hundred companies, and powerfully connected philanthropists all looking to get some of the expert’s time. All these people share one thing in common: they have more to offer the expert than the entrepreneur who wants to meet with her.

And the entrepreneur is just one of hundreds of people who contact the expert daily to request a meeting. The expert, who has been successful in large part because she has worked so hard, must move something off of her schedule to add anything to it, and when request from random strangers somehow reach her or her assistants, she is unlikely to cancel another meeting to take the entrepreneur’s. However, in those rare instances where someone does get through, the entrepreneur might find himself face-to-face with the expert and have only an instant to convince her that he is worth the investment of her time.

Then the entrepreneur stumbles through the meeting, quickly demonstrating that no matter how well he understands the business or the industry he will never be able to succeed in launching it, so the expert quickly begins ignoring the entrepreneur and adds very little value to the meeting. Those wannabe entrepreneurs are known in the industry as "wantrapreneurs."

Unfortunately there are many wantrapreneurs who misidentify themselves as entrepreneurs because they want to be associated with such an amazing group of people. These people usually don’t even realize their evaluations are inaccurate. They may earnestly believe they are pursuing entrepreneurship, but they are doing so in such a haphazard or lazy manner that they have no chance of actually succeeding.

Wantrapreneurs come in all forms, from loud and boisterous to quite and reserved. From constantly touting one idea to endlessly touting new ideas. From having great ideas to having horrible ideas. In any event, they always share one characteristic: They aren’t going to put in the sort of effort necessary to succeed.

Wantrapreneurs are a problem for you because they overwhelm the resources that you need to access with frivolous requests. They waste mentors’, investors’, and everyone else’s already limited time—time that you need access to. As a defense mechanism, most of the people and resources in the community have quickly developed their own triggers to identify whether the people asking for their time are entrepreneurs or wantrapreneurs. If you display the wrong mindset, not only will you be less likely to succeed, but you will be unlikely to get the quality of help that you need.

You must quickly distinguish yourself from the hordes of wantrapreneurs by exuding the right entrepreneurial mindset, because without that mindset, you won’t succeed, and because everyone knows you can’t succeed without that mindset, they’ll stop helping you. That right entrepreneurial mindset is important because it’s the only mindset with any realistic chance of success in entrepreneurship. The experts you try to meet with already know that.

Investors, philosophers, and observers have tried to define what makes entrepreneurial leaders succeed for as long as there have been such leaders. Being passionate about a concept and being coachable in your pursuit of that goal are two key building blocks for any entrepreneur. But there’s a third, sort of ‘it’ factor that people in the industry sense but struggle to define. At the EC, we refer to that ‘it’ factor as entrepreneurial GRIT, the common thread in all entrepreneurial DNA.

G stands for goal. Transcendent entrepreneurial leaders must set transcendent goals. Entrepreneurial leaders are visionaries who never let present day constraints prevent them from building tomorrow’s dreams. They are inspirers who can motivate a team to pursue the impossible in the face of adversity, scarcity, and negativity. They set sail for brighter horizons and do not fear waving farewell to the shoreline. They burn with madness, longing, and ingenuity for something more, and they work tirelessly to chase it.

R stands for resilience. Entrepreneurs must stand resilient against the gathering storm. When others might run from challenges and change course, entrepreneurs take them on. They are less afraid to make the hard decisions, often without complete knowledge of the factors that could affect their business, because they know inaction would mean certain failure. They learn to deal with the hard reality of scarce resources, high uncertainty, and ambiguity. They learn what it means to persevere and fight a market of bigger, stronger, established competitors. They learn from mistakes and move forward. They accept failure as a moment on the way to success. They accept challenges as a sign of progress. They bend with the storm, but they never break, and they always spring back up, tall, shining, and ready for more.

I is for innovative. Entrepreneurial leaders embrace their curiosity and innovate new solutions for a new world. They develop new customer value through solutions that meet new needs or existing needs in new ways. They develop our ability to think through possibilities and practicalities. They learn to look at an existing idea or product and make it into something even better by looking at it with fresh eyes. In order to be highly innovative, we must know the facts well.

T represents our ability to trust. Trust in the confident expectation of something. Optimism and hope. Our ability to trust in the people around us to help us execute the vision, to turn the idea into something real. For an entrepreneurial leader, this is especially hard. Entrepreneurs often fill multiple roles to address the needs of their startups. They are prepared to do whatever is necessary to help the business succeed. Their sense of responsibility is critical in the early stage of venture creation. As a startup grows, the unilateral decision-making style of early-stage entrepreneurs and leaders must change. Leaders who are unable to shift from self-reliance to delegation and trust may actually hinder the growth of their startups later on. At every stage of an entrepreneurial mission, the ability to build strong relationships is crucial.

This DNA lies deep within all of us, but for some of us it takes more effort to bring out than in others. If you make the effort, you’ll find that deep within your DNA is an untapped reservoir of energy—an entrepreneurial spirit—a personal resource that allows you to continue achieving, growing and becoming. If you cultivate this spirit, not only will you be able to launch a successful mission, but you will be able to change the entire planet.