Entrepreneurship: Key Qualities on the Road to Success

As Alvin Toffler said: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” If we look at the age we live in, anyone who has been very successful owes it to certain personality traits, perseverance, and effort. For example, if we try to understand how people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffet have become successful, we need to highlight certain aspects. When it comes to Elon Musk, everyone talks about his successes; SpaceX, Tesla, PayPal, etc. These projects are the products of a mind that serves innovation, constantly generates new ideas, and develops existing systems. However, as he himself admitted, he was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008. He had a certain budget left and had to spread this budget among his companies (BBC NEWS, 2018). It is better to try, do the right things, and get the right results than not to try at all. Jeff Bezos realized the potential of selling products online (Marketing Türkiye, 2018). In 1994, he left DE Shaw (a Wall Street investment bank) and entered the internet world by opening an online bookstore (Marketing Türkiye, 2018). Jeff Bezos's decision to leave a safe investment banking career to start Amazon is a great example of risk-taking courage. Warren Buffet's life story is also very interesting. His first commercial venture was selling Coca-Cola bottles, weekly magazines, and gum. At the age of 14, he invested in a farm belonging to his father and bought a 40-acre farm operated by tenant farmers with the $1200 he had saved (Accesland.Live, 2024). Warren Buffet's early start in business and his persistence in investing the money he saved shows how important perseverance and dedication to one's goals are. A common aspect of these people is that they keep up with the times. Asking themselves what products or services people around the world need is a critical question that allows them to see the big picture.

Another feature related to all these qualities is tolerance for uncertainty. If a person cannot tolerate uncertainty, they always want to know what will happen next, but such a possibility does not exist in entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur must bring a new product to the market or provide a new service to communities. This innovation feature is valuable in terms of taking risks for the unknown and the undiscovered. An entrepreneur progresses with determination and persistence within uncertainty, with the belief that they can overcome obstacles and succeed. In this journey, every society must know the unique cultural characteristics of its smallest unit, but this is not enough; it must also be able to see the big picture.

At Baltas Group, in our work with leading institutions from different sectors, we see that individual and corporate entrepreneurship projects are one of the main focuses of both investments and corporate management processes. Every entrepreneurial candidate who wants to be successful in the future world is expected to evaluate themselves in terms of personality traits and draw a roadmap for development. For more comprehensive information, you can access the 2012 issue of the Baltaş Group publication Kaynak titled Corporate Entrepreneurship, where we examined the concept of entrepreneurship from both individual and corporate perspectives, via https://kaynakbaltas.com/dergiler/kurumsal-girisimcilik/.

References

Accesland.Live, (2024). The successful life of Warren Buffet retrieved from https://blog.accessland.live/warren-buffetin-basarili-hayati/ on 27.06.2024.

BBC NEWS, (2018). Elon Musk: I narrowly escaped bankruptcy in 2008 retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-43367368 on 27.06.2024.

Bozkurt, Ö. (2007). The importance of personality traits in entrepreneurship tendency. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Development, 1(2), 93-111.

Marketing Türkiye, (2018). The inspiring story of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon retrieved from https://www.marketingturkiye.com.tr/haberler/amazon-kurucusu-jeff-bezos-hayat-hikayesi/ on 18.07.2024.