“Generation Y is the most entrepreneurial generation ever,” said Jeff Cornwall, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville.

An online job marketplace oDesk recently surveyed 3,193 professionals worldwide with a focus on individuals in the 19-30 age category, namely the Generation Y. In its report Millennials and the Future of Work, the researchers discovered a growing trend of younger employees trading in their 9-to-5 stable job, in exchange with the pursuit towards their big dreams of business ideas.

Highlights of the report include:

• 72% who are still at “regular” jobs want to quit entirely; 61% say they will likely quit within two years
• 90% of independent workers think that being an entrepreneur reflects having a certain mindset (instead of being strictly defined as starting a company)
• Of the freelancing Millennials surveyed, 58% classify themselves as entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship has been the talk of the town and direction taken in the current society, especially among the Generation Y. Many young Malaysian entrepreneurs have also embarked on their entrepreneur journey, especially with gourmet burgers and coffee (e.g. the B.I.G. Group, My Burger Lab, Coffee Société) as seen in the sudden sprout within the F&B industry. Many sources stressed on their individual and distinct point-of-view about entrepreneurship. We thought otherwise; there are some commonalities, which all entrepreneurs share, and those that distinguish them from the others.

Essentially, we have summarised and identified L.E.A.D. as the shared model of characteristics among all successful entrepreneurs.

Leadership:

The successful entrepreneurs are leaders with vision, captains who lead the ship towards the intended direction with passion and energy. In the so-called talent war era, employees seem to have a greater marketplace than before while employers are competing for the “A” players to join them in the battlefield. To build your “A” team of phenomenal talent pumped with adrenaline, you will have to, no, you must provide an environment that makes employees feel their value and contributions are recognised. Of course, it is also important to let them know that their decisions to join you in this new venture are not wrong! Your first team of employees are at the forefront of your business battlefield – as brand ambassadors, to help build the business and connect to your customers – and their roles cannot be undermined. Involve and encourage their participation in business solutioning and sharing of their opinions and aspirations. While you may be the founder, you do not necessarily need to act like a commandant.

Entrepreneurial Orientation:

Starting a new venture in the highly competitive marketplace, you, as the business newbie, can’t go far without having some fundamental entrepreneurial skills. You have to take autonomous action, be proactive to seize opportunities and kick start your start-up. Decisions have to be made independently and confidently in pursuit of new opportunities. On top of that, the mainstream strategies are not to be missed, such as, thinking out-of-the-box or wearing de Bono’s green hat of creativity to stay innovative in establishing a unique selling proposition for your products. While it may not be necessary to have absolute novelty (although novelty always has a captivating effect), your innovation must be relevant to your target customers.

Entrepreneurs who are competitively aggressive will also have a higher likelihood of success as they are constantly challenging the status quo and striving to be the market leader. Knowing the aggressive competition in the marketplace and knowing that there are many unknowns and potential roadblocks, the entrepreneurs are still excited to continue their ventures and willing to commit significant resources (e.g., time, energy, brain juice, monetary investment) to opportunities even if those are of high risk. Like the old saying “fortune favours the bold”, success lies ahead for those who are bold to take the step to venture.

Hence, to be a successful entrepreneur, we strongly suggest you to consider the 4 key dimensions of Entrepreneurial Orientation – autonomy, innovativeness, competitive aggressiveness and risk taking.

Adaptability:

Welcome change and embrace uncertainties. Successful entrepreneurs have fire in their bellies. They drive to succeed in all circumstances despite being challenged, and anyway, have you ever heard of entrepreneurial success achieved through a smooth and easy highway? “Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity”, as Reed Markham shared. Also, they do not find excuses or attribute it to external factors when they encounter setbacks. Research findings have confirmed that entrepreneurs who are personally characterised as having a greater internal locus of control and propensity to take risk are successful in their new business start-ups. The entrepreneurs are more accountable for their actions and results, they share a positive attitude towards risk and failure, which serve to their strong need for achievement. So, ask yourself, do you think your (future) business success or failure lies in your hands, or that it is heavily dependent on the outside world?

Another trait of strong adaptability that could be found in the successful entrepreneurs’ blood is one that we can’t stress enough – persistence. Put on your thinking hat or execution hat, one at a time, do your best and never ever raise a white flag. Vince Lombardi once said, “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

Deep diving:

Successful entrepreneurs are equipped with three elements in depth:

1. Cognitive:

This is the ability to zoom-in – pay attention to details, and zoom-out – take a helicopter view. A deep-dive approach may be highly valuable to look into the various critical aspects of your new ventures – market research, competitive matrix and key factors that drive your company’s profit.  The ability to make sense of large volumes of information in such a complex and dynamic business environment reflects an integral element of entrepreneurs’ cognitive competence. Successful entrepreneurs are able to take different perspectives and apply their business-, finance-, or marketing-related knowledge into the working plan. While it does not mean that you must have a doctorate in those, but a certain degree of familiarity and knowledge in those areas would definitely come in handy to supplement and boost your thought process. All in all, successful entrepreneurs exhibit strong business acumen with their remarkable cognitive ability.

2.  Action-driven:

It is referred to as the ability to execute. You need to lead your “A” team with purposeful direction; meanwhile empowering them to be accountable to delegated actions. With this, not only do you instil trust within your team, but your encouragement leads to greater efforts and productivity –killing two birds with one stone.

To grow your new ventures successfully, it is critical to also have go-to-market strategies and wear your smartest suits to reach your target customers. You and your team need to deep dive into deriving at unique and differentiated strategies customised to specific target customers, and go in full force to attack the marketplace. Lastly, as archaic as it may sound, put your heart close to theirs.

3.  Affective:

This refers to being competent in your emotional management to self and to others, across situations. In a start-up environment which is commonly lined up with many road blocks and uncertainties, there needs to be a relatively high emotional competence for entrepreneurs to tolerate and effectively ride through the storms. As Daniel Goleman, Guru of EI, described, there are Personal (self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation) and Social Competence (empathy and social skills). Successful entrepreneurs are confident, self-controlled, committed and motivated, conscientious and high in perseverance, as well as service-oriented, effective in communication, collaboration-focused and solution seeker.

L.E.A.D. – what all successful entrepreneurs share in common. Are you ready to L.E.A.D.? If yes, how effective would you rate yourself?

Share with us your stories and experiences!