Welcome to this stop of the current edition of the Business Blog Book Tour. Our guest today is Tom Ehrenfeld, author of The Start-up Garden.
Throughout the day I will be posting my questions to Tom and his responses. Stop by often and join the in the discussion. The author will be checking in to see the comments and questions that you post and will offer additional insights based on what you have to say. As I mentioned earlier this week, we did have a few glitches after we upgraded our software, but the comments feature is now working flawlessly. Jump into the discussion any time!
Question: I like your metaphor of a garden for the entrepreneurial process. Are there any values or personal characteristics common to “successful” gardeners that also would be useful for entrepreneurs to think about?
Answer: The core idea of my book is that there are essential skills for individuals to master in order to realize entrepreneurial success. That is, simply to get in the game you need to become financially literate, to understand the principle of boundaries and goals when employing people or dealing with professional colleagues, to get the notion of a customer at a fundamental level, for starters. I think that when you develop these skills you have more of an opportunity to leverage your personal passions, skills, and beliefs.
Are there common values or characteristics to successful entrepreneurs, in my book? I guess the answer is both yes and no. No, in the sense that I truly believe entrepreneurship can be practiced by anyone with a strong conviction to bring a product or service or experience to life for others. But to do so an individual must be willing to put up with certain elements of life, such as uncertainty, that just won’t play with others. If pressed, I would say that the following traits are in general quite useful for entrepreneurial growth and success:
*sense of self and purpose—an understanding of what you really are good at and want to do.
*willingness to live in gray areas—a relative comfort level with situations that are by nature not preordained.
*an ability to ask for help—whether it’s asking for an investment or for time from a customer or supplier or mentor, you should be able to make reasonable requests without flinching.
*tempered optimism about the world and your place in it—a sense that when you act on the things you really care about you can make a meaningful difference.
*sufficient imagination to make unexpected connections.
*the ability to think backwards from a situation as well as think forwards—which means, the talent to reverse engineer success. This means having the capacity to start with the end in mind (in this case a valuable and sustainable proposition for a distinct customer) and then work backwards to figure out how to make this happen.
*an ability to learn and grow—and most of all, a reflective capacity. That is, an ability to learn from experience! To do, to take chances, and learn from mistakes. And to learn from experience above all, rather than from simple argument or intellect or emotion.
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