An entrepreneur’s ACE

Since many readers often ask me what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, I am sharing the following discussions that recently took place among Singapore-based entrepreneurs who enrolled in our offshore Master in Entrepreneurship program.

The learning materials we used were case histories of high-profile entrepreneurs from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Although the intention of the session was not to establish the essence of entrepreneurship in statistical terms, the session yielded helpful insights that may be of interest to other entrepreneurs.

After reviewing three individual case histories, we proceeded to classify their characteristics to facilitate the ensuing analysis:

1. characteristics that were unique to one of three entrepreneurs;

2. characteristics that were common to two of the three entrepreneurs; and

3. characteristics that were common to all three entrepreneurs.

We identified the first set of characteristics as accidental, labeled the second set as coincidental, and considered the third set as essential. To facilitate recall, we call these the ACE of entrepreneurs.

What did we conclude?

The accidental

Accidental characteristics are not critical to the success of the entrepreneur. These have the remotest influence on success. If ever there is any relation, it is purely accidental. These factors include:

• Gender – The entrepreneurs did not come from one gender. There was no dominant gender.

• Economic status – The entrepreneurs did not come from one economic class. In fact, the range was broad–from a poor family to a middle class family to a royal family. There was no clear dominant economic status.

• Type of business – The type of business varied and spanned domestic trading to international trading, from trading to manufacturing, from tangible to intangible products. There was no dominant type of business.

• Ethnic background – There was no dominant ethnic background.

The coincidental

Coincidental characteristics may have some influence on the success of an entrepreneur. These are found in many successful entrepreneurs, but they are not found in all entrepreneurs. They are merely coincidental.

• Education – The entrepreneurs had different education backgrounds which ranged from being a grade school drop-out to being a post-graduate student. However, the educated out-numbered the grade drop-outs.

• Marital Status – While the variations in marital status were represented, there were more single persons among the entrepreneurs.

• Government support – There were cases where government support was received, but there were more successful entrepreneurs without government support.

• Planning for future generations – Not all entrepreneurs planned for their successor generations.

• Running of the business – While not all the entrepreneurs were involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, most of them were. Those who were not involved operationally were able to identify people who handled the daily operations.

The essential

Since all the successful entrepreneurs have them, they must be essential characteristics.

• Passion– Although there were different objects of passion, all successful entrepreneurs were passionate about their enterprise.

• Hardworking – All entrepreneurs were willing to work more than the usual eight hours a day.

• Unacceptable status quo – All of them did not accept their status quo. Even if they each had a different status quo, they refused to accept these as their destinies. For them, there was always something better.

• Vision – Everyone had a clear view of what they wanted to be. There was commonality in their vision that there was always something they considered beyond the self.

• Achievers – All defied the constraints levied upon them. They were not satisfied with following the rules, as given. They identified their vision and did not allow tradition nor current rules to stop them from achieiving.

• Mastery of the business – Everyone knew what it took to be superior in the game they were playing.

These findings on the ACE of entrepreneurs all boil down to the three masteries which we in the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship cannot but overemphasize to all our entrepreneur-students: self-mastery, situation mastery and enterprise mastery. And, these, in fact, reaffirm the name of the game at the ACE of AIM.

(Alejandrino Ferreria is the associate dean of the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship of the Asian Institute of Management. For further comments and inquiries, you may contact him at: [email protected]. Published "Entrepreneur’s Helpline" columns can be viewed on the AIM website at http//: www.aim.edu.ph).