Being a successful entrepreneur requires superpowers that most people do not possess. The following six superpowers are needed for today's entrepreneurs to have victory over the entrepre-villains (next blog post) who are trying to kill their brand.
Relentlessly Resourceful
The fact is as an entrepreneur you are never going to have all the resources you need in the way you initially thought. Superpreneurs are relentlessly resourceful in finding what they need through nontraditional channels or are able to figure out a completely different way of getting the job done.
Terminally Tenacious
I've met a lot of smart people with clever ideas who hit one roadblock or another and were never able to bring their idea it to market. To me, the best entrepreneurial superpower is not intelligence, connections, or money it is terminal tenacity. Why? Because as my Mum used to say, "persistence wears resistance" and the best entrepreneurs in the world are the embodiment of that axiom. Investors I know will bet on an entrepreneur who is terminally tenacious every time over someone with a great idea or polished business plan.
Preeminently Passionate
The etymology of the word 'passion' is from the Late Latin word passionem meaning “to willingly endure suffering.” If there was ever a superpower, an aspiring entrepreneur is going to need, it is preeminent passion because the life of an entrepreneur is hard. It is early mornings and late nights. It is celebration dinners that are marked by adding an egg to your ramen then getting back to work. It is watching your friends house while they are vacationing in Europe. If a person is not "willing to suffer" they should go find a nice office job somewhere.
Overtly Optimistic
I've never met a successful entrepreneur who is a pessimist or a "realist" which pessimists like to call themselves. In fact, the best entrepreneurs have the superpower of overt optimism (not to be confused with overoptimism). Investors, team members, and customers need to be inspired and believe they can create the change they want to see in the world. The entrepreneurial superpower of overt optimism is the strength your team relies on to keep moving forward when the times are tough.
Enthusiastically Evangelistic
No one sees or believes in the future you see or believe can be a reality. They're not against you; they are just busy living their life doing the things that make sense to them. Every successful enterprise has a lead evangelist who is out "sharing the good news" about how your product or service can make life better. Without an enthusiastic evangelist, you may discover a cure for cancer, but if you don't have someone who can shout it from mountain tops, it will never save one life.
Serendipitous Solver
I was recently on a local NBC station being interviewed with one of the best serial entrepreneurs I know, Matt Thompson the Managing Partner of For the Table. During the interview, Matt was asked, "What his main duty was as an entrepreneur?" And he said, "Solve problems." That's it! The primary duty of an entrepreneur is to solve problems. Entrepreneurs solve a problem with the product or service they create, they solve problems along the way to bring it to market, and they solve problems when it gets out into the wild. If an entrepreneur cannot solve a problem, then their investors, team, and customers suffer.
Let me leave you with a quote from George Bernard Shaw, who said, "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people persist in trying to adapt the world to them. Therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable people." Entrepreneurs are by nature "unreasonable people," they disrupt the status quo and
create a new world in which they want to live. Pretty presumptuous, huh? I love
it.
What's your Entrepreneurial Superpower?
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