The Characteristics of Entrepreneurship That People Don’t Talk About

When you think about the characteristics of entrepreneurship, what comes to your mind?

If it’s about passion, self-motivation, risk-taking, grit or having great networking and communication skills, we won’t be talking about those today.

Instead, I want to explore the characteristics of entrepreneurship that most people don’t talk about.

Since increasing income is the best way to grow your wealth, I believe the ability to build a business is a valuable skill to have.

Whether it’s to create an online business or media platform, being an entrepreneur today is much easier than ever.

As someone who is very interested to start a small side hustle, I want to learn about the characteristics of entrepreneurship. Here’s what I found…

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The Characteristics of Entrepreneurship

During the past ten years of working in corporations, I have not thought about the prospect of becoming an entrepreneur.

It’s not that the idea wasn’t enticing. But when you work day in and day out, you forget to stop and smell the roses. (Or take time to ponder on a toilet.)

But ever since I became a mom, this topic is now CONSTANTLY on my mind. No longer do I wish to climb the corporate ladder, I’m more interested in seeing my baby grow and develop!

And this is where the prospect of starting an online business took root.

In addition, I learned that entrepreneurship not only offers flexibility, but a sense of fulfilment if you find your true calling.

Indeed, resources are abundant nowadays and starting a business is easier and cheaper than ever!

But of course, since the barrier of entry is much lower, you may also face a host of other challenges.

That’s why it’s important to understand a set of characteristics that makes a successful entrepreneur so that you can overcome them.

Luckily, these characteristics are not innate, but can be acquired through small actions and shift in mindset. Here are five unorthodox characteristics of entrepreneurship:

Have the Courage to Start Even With Limited Info

If you ask any entrepreneur when is the best time to start a business, some will tell you to “just start now.”

Essentially, taking action is more important than waiting for the right moment.

When it comes to risk-taking, it’s always better to have as much information as possible before making a move. This is, after all, a way to protect ourselves from failures and pitfalls.

But the problem with waiting for the right moment is missed opportunities. When all of the information is readily available, it means that the market may already be saturated.

Imagine if Apple waited to have all of the consumer insights before launching its iPhone. By the time they gathered all the right info, the opportunity might have already passed.

I’m speaking of personal experience here when it comes to starting a business. While I like to believe that I have a high risk tolerance, I normally require at least 80% certainty before making a decision.

Nowadays, I find that 80% is way too safe. I should be comfortable with dealing with just 40-50% unknowns.

When you have the ability to act with high ambiguity, you face more risk but will reap more rewards.

And so when it comes to starting a business, there really isn’t a right moment. What’s important is to seize the opportunity or just start!

Focus on Iteration, Not Perfection

Being an entrepreneur is all about solving problems. But sometimes, you may not have the perfect solutions.

As a perfectionist myself, I suffer from aiming for things to be done right.

On one hand, focusing on quality is a great trait, but on the other, this could impede progress.

What I find in successful entrepreneurs are their ability to iterate as they go. This means that they don’t aim for perfection, but instead try by doing repeatedly and make tweaks along the way.

After all, things are changing constantly. In this type of environment, it’s definitely wiser to iterate than to aim for perfection.

Be Okay With Little to No Rewards in the Beginning

The most difficult part of being an entrepreneur is that you’ll reap little to no rewards in the beginning while putting in endless hours of work.

This could be very discouraging especially when you’re used to getting paid for what you do.

What I find entrepreneurs who made it through the beginning hurdle is that they seem to be okay with having very little rewards.

This could be attributed to having:

• a safety net or emergency fund
• a positive mindset to not give up
• the resilience to get through challenges
• confidence about one’s ability
• a strong reason to pursue one’s goal

Lacking any of these attributes mentioned, I think it’d be really hard to keep going.

As with any business, the beginning stage is the toughest to get through.

But if you can be okay with having little to no rewards in the beginning, you might reap the rewards of an exponential growth later on.

Have a Strong “Why” and Stay Optimistic

Sometimes, you might question yourself on whether or not you’ve chosen the right path.

This is why having a strong “why” to be exceptionally important.

For example, I started this blog out of curiosity of exploring ways to make money at home. But this wasn’t my utmost important rationale.

You see, I’m literally not making enough to cover the costs of starting this blog as of now. But I’m completely okay with that.

What’s more important for me is to share my knowledge, learn new skills and jog down my thoughts so that my daughter can possibly read them in the future.

Having this strong “why” gives me the push I needed to stay optimistic about my endeavors.

I truly believe that a business will naturally thrive if it can help others or solve important problems. So until then, I’m perfectly happy with the progress I made and I hope that I’d have the resilience to continue.

Be Actions Focused; Let Results Come Second

Finally, one of the most important characteristics of entrepreneurship is to be actions focused.

Many times, we are asked at work to be “results-oriented.” While having this focus will help propel you to reach the end result, it’s not necessary important in entrepreneuship.

Moreover, having a results-oriented mindset might do more harm than good.

Take, for instance, setting a goal of getting x amount of social media followers. You might take more time to interact with others or promote yourself more, but then you’re also taking essential time out to build up your business. What’s worse? You might even burn yourself out trying to reach the result.

Without a good business model, it’s an endless chase for a standard that’s outside of one’s control.

That’s why I think that many successful entrepreneurs became successful because they focus more on the actions rather than the results.

Having this mindset also forces us to not be disappointed by the end result, but to stay focus on producing quality work.

This is why I don’t favor focusing on the numbers in the first two years of starting out.

Instead, I want to focus primarily on taking small actions and let the results speak volume over time.

In Summary…

Becoming an entrepreneur is much more doable endeavor today than ever before.

Not only is it cheaper to start, but anyone with a laptop or a cell phone can pretty much start an online business.

The most important criteria is to just start, iterate, and stay focused on taking small actions. This definitely helps when you have a safety net to ensure that you’re okay with having very little to no rewards at the beginning.

But most importantly, you should always know your “why” and hold on tight. In time, your business will blossom, but if not, at least you would have accomplished something worthwhile.

Are you an entrepreneur? What are some of your best tips to start a business?

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