By Eli Sinaiko
Not everybody can be an entrepreneur. Individuals who are not entrepreneurs can be broken into two categories. The first category consists of people who would be entrepreneurs if not for external circumstances such as financial constraints or socioeconomic privilege to prevent them from achieving that outcome.
The second group is composed of people who have the means to be entrepreneurs but have no desire or motive to do so and therefore do not. If we examine the former category, we can create another dichotomy within this grouping.
Of the individuals who would be entrepreneurs if not for external impediments, there would be a set of successful entrepreneurs and a set of unsuccessful ones.
If we narrow in on the former set of hypothetical individuals who would be successful entrepreneurs if not for reasons not within their immediate control, we can identify several traits and personal characteristics common to, but not perfectly correlated with, an entrepreneur’s personality.
This article neatly summarizes some of the primary qualities successful entrepreneurs tend to possess. The traits listed in the article are not exhaustive. Nor must the categories all be present in an individual to ensure their entrepreneurial success. They are mere heuristics; identifiable indicators that one can rely on to assess whether or not an individual is likely to be an entrepreneur.
