The Answer to the Most Common Question Entrepreneurs Ask

January 19, 2012

The most common entrepreneurial question, “What business should I get into that maximizes my chances of success”?

We’ve all heard it over the years. If you want to succeed, you need to have a passion for what you do, but why it is so important to entrepreneurs and start-ups?

I am a big fan of replacing the traditional business plan with the concept plan for fledgling start-up companies. There are many famous start-ups. While it’s unlikely, deep down every first-time entrepreneur hopes that they will be the founder of the next corporate icon. A common misconception is the founders of those great companies created the perfect product and had the all-knowing business plan at the very beginning. That’s not what happens at all.

So what does passion have to do with it?

Most entrepreneurs are impatient people. They want to introduce their product to their customers quickly and they dream of an instant success.

There are no overnight or quick successes. When an entrepreneur starts a new business, it usually takes 2 to 3 years to determine the right product and business model. No matter what the founders’ backgrounds, markets are dynamic and experimentation creates the company and its product.

Every new avenue and experiment brings hope that this will be the one that works and propels the company into stardom, only to have those hopes dashed over and over again. And once the current business experiment fails, there is despair as the entrepreneur desperately tries to think of what to try next. It’s difficult to continue to believe that every failure brings the entrepreneur a step closer to the success desired – even if this progress is imperceptible. It’s the passion for what one does that sustains the entrepreneur through these times because it surely isn’t the absentee customers or the disappointed investors or the naysayers all around them.

We all heard it said that success is the result of a series of failures. While we all accept this wisdom, it’s not so easy living through the failures. It’s true though that once you succeed, no one remembers the failures – and this is where the media creates the impression that there are overnight successes.

What I’ve learned over the years is there aren’t any easy businesses to be in, they all have their challenges. In every market, there are the businesses that fail and those that succeed. The problem is we don’t often hear about the ones that fail. The overnight success is a myth.

Many want-to-be entrepreneurs ask what type of business they should create and what product should they offer. I’ve actually put this question to investors and the response I always get is, “If we like what we hear and see, then we will invest”. However, the answer is simple. Entrepreneurs just need to ask themselves the question, “What am I passionate about?” because another lesson I’ve learned is that any and every type business can be highly successful. It’s the passion that not only sustains the entrepreneur to work through the failures and the process of starting a new business, but it’s the passion that attracts the customers and investors to the company as well. Passion, enthusiasm, and attitude are huge factors in achieving any goal.