## Qualities of a Successful Entrepreneur – Inspiration

This series began by discussing what I consider the most important quality: perseverance. The following posts were dedicated to practical skills, the ability to pivot, and resilience.

# Inspiration / Leadership

Many have asked about the difference between perseverance and resilience. To me, perseverance is pushing forward. It’s those things you push through, where you never take “no” for an answer. Resilience, on the other hand, is the ability to withstand setbacks while continuing the fight. Want to understand what resilience is? Watch the fantastic 46-second video with Roki. Anyone who has been an entrepreneur will tell you that, in the beginning, success essentially boils down to sheer survival. Much also depends on luck and the right timing.

It’s known that being persistent to the point of stubbornness, without practical acumen to notice when market conditions begin to change and to pivot in time, is a recipe for failure. In my view, that’s exactly why PalmPilot missed the trend towards the development of E-mail, while RIM (BlackBerry) followed it. In turn, BlackBerry missed the development of the Internet and still has a mediocre browser after so many years.

So, perseverance and resilience alone are not enough. All qualities of an entrepreneur must work together.

Many entrepreneurs struggle with their failures. Some are resentful towards investors or circumstances. Others give up and react the way Toby did. I bet that the leadership qualities he displayed helped an angel investor understand that Toby deserved support.

Some blog readers also noted that “pivoting” can be destructive to company employees. This also applies to constant hiring and firing – natural “turnover” in the early stages of a startup. This is true. But this is where the next quality of a successful entrepreneur comes into play.

As an entrepreneur, you constantly feel a lack of resources. You want to hire a great team of developers, but you haven’t secured sufficient investment from venture capital firms yet. You aim to bring a key marketer from Google on board, but they earn good money that you can’t match. You want to find someone who would introduce you to Ron Convery, so he can lend your startup his impeccable reputation by investing as an angel investor. For most entrepreneurs, these are almost impossible tasks. And you can’t achieve this with perseverance alone. In fact, unrefined perseverance often annoys, while combined with inspiration and charm, it can be motivating.

Entrepreneurs often show me slides with names of people who are just waiting to join their team once the investment is secured. I usually joke: “Maybe you’re not an entrepreneur?” This always makes people flinch. I say, “Listen, almost every successful entrepreneur in venture capital companies I’ve seen has an ’extraordinary’ quality that people notice. It’s clear that those you want on your team are comfortable in their positions at world-renowned companies and aren’t willing to risk joining you. But if they come across the right entrepreneur, they’ll think, ‘I need to follow them. I believe this startup will be hugely successful, and I don’t want to miss this opportunity.’”

These are the best entrepreneurs. Around them, you feel like you’re getting inspired. They are passionately engaged in their work, confident in their future success, and actively striving to achieve it. Of course, they have doubts when they look at themselves alone in the mirror, but you wouldn’t know that in the office. You should know that for every slide with people who will join you after securing investment, I have an example of a company that actually built a team with no more funds in the bank than you have.

When I make the next presentation, I often catch myself thinking, “How can I inspire those who are watching this?” Inspiration is very important not only because it’s necessary for building a team and leadership within it, but so that clients will work with you, even though, from a sane perspective, they shouldn’t. Your bank account has less than enough for six months, and the product is still far from ready. But clients have the confidence that you’ll break through, even if they don’t realize it themselves. TechCrunch will cover you. They won’t, because you currently represent more of a myth than a reality. But they sense your trajectory. Their sixth sense tells them that you’ll successfully overcome all difficulties.

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