Natural entrepreneurs are born, not made: not all of them realise they have the talent, and most people have something of the entrepreneur in them. Lots of us can sing a bit; few of us make a living singing; but an Elvis or a Pavarotti come along once in a blue moon. Same with entrepreneurs: people like Andrew Carnegie, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Ingvar Kamprad, Lakshmi Mittal are the rarities amongst the spectrum of enterprising individuals and teams who succeed to one degree or another.
Those of us who don’t have talents on a Mozartian scale can still achieve plenty. For starters: skills, behaviours and beliefs can be learned, or improved; and it’s astonishing what ordinary ideas can be transformed into wealth by persistence and nerve. The opposite is true: startlingly original ideas that could make someone a fortune wither on the vine for lack of confidence or, more often, lack of drive.
The words entrepreneur and enterprise come from the French verb entreprendre, to undertake – these are people who do things. They see an opportunity, assess the risk against the possible reward, and if the ratio is attractive, they go for it, all out, 100%, usually running on instinct. Many of the Score mention impulse, gut feeling, instinct, back of a fag packet moments. They almost always then do the homework and the analysis to back up their hunches, especially if there are other, more sceptical people to convince, or bureaucracy to handle. But it is always the flash of inspiration, the instant recognition of an opportunity, that gets the energy buzzing.
They don’t wait for someone to hand them something on a plate, in fact they don’t like waiting at all – though several of the interviewees say that if the end result is worth it, they will wait for as long as necessary to win the game. Common to our Score is a compulsion to make things happen, and to blast through obstacles they meet, human or otherwise.
They are prepared to do whatever it takes……………………
