It’s Your Business: Can you succeed as an entrepreneur?
May 20, 2024
By Jerry Bellune
It’s been my privilege to teach startup
entrepreneurs and advise venture capitalists
about investments to avoid..
It taught me more about entrepreneurship
than I could learn any other way.
If that doesn’t make sense, consider this:
Everyone I worked with taught me
because I asked a lot of questions
and benefited from their answers.
Aaron Dinin, an entrepreneurship coach
at Duke University, has come up with
several models of which wannabe
entrepreneurs will succeed.
• As youngsters they did something
impressive they felt passionate about.
They worked hard (mostly on their own)
to achieve success.
For example, one entrepreneur ran
a social media account with over
a million followers when he was 16.
Others wrote books when they were in
high school. This requires self-discipline
and personal motivation.
• They tackled specific problems.
Entrepreneurs are obsessed
with solving problems.
For example, one entrepreneur lost
a parent because of a medical accident.
Now she’s running a successful startup
that’s raised millions of dollars to cure it.
She wants no other child to feel the pain
and loss that she once felt.
• They didn’t do what everybody else did.
Dinen’s student entrepreneurs who will
become successful aren’t interested in
the “normal” things college students do.
They’re more likely to spend time
on some sort of personal passion
they’re obsessing about.
They rarely get good grades because they
don’t prioritize homework or class attendance.
They’d rather work on their startups.
That doesn’t help their grades but it’s a good
sign they’re going to be successful like.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.
Thanks, Aaron, for your refreshing insights.
What if you don’t meet his three rules.
If you want to become an entrepreneur, do it.
I didn’t meet all three rules either but
I was passionate about what I did.
For other ideas, order a personally autographed
copy of my book, Maverick Entrepreneurs’
Million Dollar Strategies. Just email me
This book gives you my own success secrets
as a business owner, book publisher and
professional speaker plus those of 10 of my
successful maverick entrepreneur friends.
