Entrepreneurs: characteristics, skills and motives

What kind of person builds five thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven versions of a vacuum cleaner before one is good enough to sell? James Dyson did, over about five years, while he developed his bagless design. That means five thousand, one hundred and twenty-six versions that were not good enough. He made the next one anyway. What was he like, to keep going for that long? And what was he hoping to get out of it? Both answers sit inside the person, so start with what a person is like.

A characteristic is a quality a person shows in the way they behave. An entrepreneur's characteristics are the qualities that help them start and run a business. That is different from the role. The role is what an entrepreneur does, organising resources, deciding and taking risks, while characteristics are what the entrepreneur is like. Courses name a set of these qualities, and each one only counts when you can point to something the person did. Risk taking means being willing to put money and time at stake. Initiative means making the first move. Innovation and creativity mean coming up with new ideas or new ways of doing things. Determination means keeping going after setbacks, and commitment and resilience sit close to it. Being hard working means putting in the hours. Being organised means keeping track of money, stock and time. Decision making means choosing between options, often without all the facts. Confidence is belief in yourself and your idea. Leadership is getting other people to follow you. Planning is thinking ahead, and persuasiveness is convincing others, such as a bank or a customer. Which quality do Dyson's thousands of prototypes show most directly: persuasiveness, determination or organisation? Determination. He met thousands of setbacks and kept building the next version, which is determination in action. The bagless design shows creativity and innovation too, because it was a new way of doing an old job. Some of these qualities are skills a person can learn and practise. Decision making, organising, planning, leading and persuading all improve with practice. Others are more about attitude. Determination and a willingness to take risks belong in that group. Now a case where you find the qualities yourself. Amara started Root and Rind, a van selling fruit, vegetables and grains with no plastic packaging. She spent a year visiting farms to find suppliers. Two banks refused her a loan, and she persuaded a third to lend her fifteen thousand pounds. And she redesigned the van's shelving herself, so it could hold sixty refill tubs. Suppose a question asks you to explain two characteristics Amara shows. Pick two characteristics, each with the action that shows it. Try it on paper before I show you mine. Here is one strong pair. Determination: after two banks refused her a loan, Amara kept going until a third lent her fifteen thousand pounds. Which means early setbacks did not stop the business starting. Creativity: she redesigned the shelving herself to fit sixty refill tubs, so she found a new way to sell without plastic in a small space. Persuasiveness, convincing that third bank, would be right as well. Compare an answer that falls short. Amara is creative, and creativity means being good at coming up with ideas. That defines the word, but it never shows it in anything Amara did. One examiner's report, on a question about James Dyson himself, says students who did less well named suitable characteristics, then explained what the terms mean rather than how they applied to him. The fix is to follow every characteristic with because, and an action from the case. And if a question gives you a characteristic as its example, choose a different one. Now a quick one on that last habit. A question asks for a characteristic Amara shows, other than creativity. Is the shelving still a safe answer? No. The shelving shows creativity, and the question has ruled creativity out. Use her determination with the banks, or her persuasiveness, instead.

A motive is a reason for doing something. An entrepreneur's motives are the reasons they start a business, and they fall into three groups. Financial motives are about money: earning more than in a current job, or building wealth over time. Non-financial motives are about the life the business gives you. Some people want to be their own boss or to choose their own hours. Some want to turn an interest into a job, or to leave a job they are unhappy in. Social motives are about helping other people or a community. That is the motive behind a social enterprise, a business set up mainly to do good. And some people start because they spot a gap in the market, a need that no business is meeting yet. Now sort a case. Owen set up Second Serve, a cafe that trains and employs people recovering from addiction, and pays them above the minimum wage. He had already run a successful catering firm, and he says he wanted to give something back. Is Owen's motive mainly financial, non-financial or social? Mainly social. Second Serve trains and employs people recovering from addiction, and Owen says he wanted to give something back. It is not mainly financial, because he already had a successful firm and chooses to pay above the minimum wage. Now a different kind of question. Leon is a head chef at a hotel. He works sixty-hour weeks, including most evenings and weekends, and he has two young children. A question wants one reason why Leon might want to become an entrepreneur, explained. Two students answer it. A: to be his own boss, earn more money and have flexible hours. B: flexible hours, so he could be home with his children in the evenings. Which is better, and why? B is better. Leon's case calls for one developed point, and A lists three with none of them developed. A full version of B goes like this. If Leon ran his own business, such as a lunchtime-only cafe, he could set his hours around his children. Which means he could be home in the evenings and at weekends, something his hotel job does not allow. One examiner's report says the reasons for becoming an entrepreneur were well understood, but the explanation was often very weak, so more than forty per cent gained one mark or less. It adds that some students lost a mark through listing points rather than developing one. The habit that answers both is one reason, then which means, then what it lets this person do. Now a shorter case. A student gives a one-word reason for starting a business, and the word is profit. Why is that word on its own not enough? It names a goal without saying what it means for the person. Develop it: earn more than in a current job, which means paying for something that matters to them, such as a family home.

Here are five questions on all of that, and each answer follows its question.

First, the difference. What separates an entrepreneur's role from their characteristics?

The role is what they do. Characteristics are what they are like.

Now someone new. Kofi was turned down by two landlords, and kept looking until a third said yes. Which characteristic does that show?

Determination, and the refusals he kept going through are your evidence from the case.

Now the motives. What are the three groups they fall into?

Financial, non-financial and social.

One more new person. Hana leaves a call-centre job she hates to start dog walking. Which group is her motive in?

Non-financial. She is escaping dissatisfaction with her current job, which is about the life she wants.

Now the explaining habit. When a question asks for one reason, what has to follow it?

Which means, and what that reason lets this person do, using facts from the case.

So back to the five thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven prototypes, and what kept him going. Building another version after every failure is determination, and a new bagless design is creativity. As for what he wanted, Dyson's own account is that his old vacuum kept losing suction, and it annoyed him. Solving that problem was a non-financial motive, sitting beside the chance to earn money.

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