Dear SaaStr: What Do the Best Entrepreneurs Do In the Early Days That The Others Don’t?
My Top 5 Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur:
- Sees a Large or Can-Be-Large White Space — And Builds a 10x Feature or Product to Fill It. There. Many can see the white space that exists, but far fewer can bring a product to market that solves a “10x better” problem in it — that people will pay for. A bit more here: The 10x Feature is Real. At Least, for a While. What’s Yours? | SaaStr.
- Can Recruit a Great Team. Almost every start-up needs a great team to start, and to scale. No matter how good you are, if you can’t recruit other truly great people, you’ll likely fail. More here: How To Get Better at Recruiting. (We All Need To). | SaaStr
- Signs up for up to 2 Years Just to Get it Off the Ground, 7–10 to Scale. Most SaaS start-ups have almost no revenue for 2+ years! If you can’t find a way to drag the team through that, you fail. And most overnight success stories in B2B take 7–10 years to get to $100m+ in ARR. More here: If You’re Going to Do a SaaS Start-Up … You Have to Give it 24 Months | SaaStr
- Understands Why It’s Not as Risky as It Looks. Most great entrepreneurs aren’t as big of risk-takers as you might think. Rather, they understand why an unexploited opportunity is larger, and less risky, than the rest of the world thinks. A bit more here: How would you characterize the risk-taking propensity of most entrepreneurs? | SaaStr
- Gets Customers, Employees, Partners, Press, etc. to Believe. Great founders find a way, through their persistence, their commitment, their passion, and their insight to get others to believe. To believe in them. In the market. In the opportunity. And why there is a real chance it can be great, big, and important. Even when it isn’t today. A related post here: Customers Love to Talk to the CEO. Do More of That Now. | SaaStr
