In my preparations for entrepreneurship, I read the book Disciplined Entrepreneurship, the expanded and updated 2024 version, by Bill Aulet from MIT Sloan School of Management. It contained some lessons and empirically proven truths, some of which I would like to share with you. Keep in mind that I read the book, which is not the same as (already) applying the lessons it contains. Therefore, this blog is partly also a “note to self”.
- Entrepreneurship is a team sport. One of the aspects to this is that having more founders improve the odds of success.
- Entrepreneurs need to be effective long-term communicators with customers and other stakeholders. First, you need to have a service or product that has real value for the customer. Second, you – or even better your customers – will need to sell/’sell’ that to others.
- Entrepreneurship is nurture, not nature. It is a systematic process that can be taught. Many will not consider it as such. Thinking that certain character traits such as being flamboyant or risk-taking are correlated with success is misguided.
- Successful entrepreneurs are an expert in one area, rather than generalists. (extra note to self).
- What entrepreneurs learn is how to take intelligent informed risks; they do not like risks any more than others. At least not the risks they think they will be unable to control.
- Working smart and hard are more important success factors than luck or random events occurring.
- A novel idea is not enough. Executing effectively on a viable idea that will evolve over time is what is needed.
- Successful entrepreneurship is more likely to come with age and experience. The average age at founding for ‘the’ 1,000 fastest-growing new ventures was 45. (Good news)
- Survival rate analyses provide evidence that following a systematic approach (not to be read as: a rigid approach) gives entrepreneurs a more than fair chance of success.
- Entrepreneurs have to have the spirit of a pirate to be different but also the discipline of a Navy SEAL to execute successfully. (extra note to self to possibly become more of a pirate; after deciding whether I actually want to be more like that).
- Entrepreneurship is a craft, not a science or art. You cannot learn it by just reading books or watching videos. My words: Just do, fail, improve, do again, repeat. (Or: just do, fail, pivot/persevere). A test of motivation, endurance and creativity (and influenced by necessity, attractiveness of other options, character, etc.)
- Entrepreneurship requires bringing heart, head, hands and resources beyond your direct control together.
- Everyone is capable of being an entrepreneur (if they really need to be one).
- Entrepreneurs are not only active in business. They can be in nonprofits, academia and governments. (A certain individual suddenly springs to mind).
- Entrepreneurship uses capitalism, but it is not simply about profiteering. To be a sustained success, entrepreneurs have to have a ‘reason for existence’.
By the way: the definition used here for entrepreneurship is as follows. An entrepreneur:
- Creates a new economically sustainable organization where there was none before and creates value for someone/others.
- Extracts value (some payment or ‘rent’) for the value produced.
- The ‘rent’ extracted exceeds the costs of running the business on an ongoing basis while also paying off any debts or other obligations from those providing the initial resources to create the new organization.
The book also contains a process with 24 steps for successful entrepreneurship and a canvas for tracking your progress. Going into that goes beyond this blog. My questions to you are the following:
- What do you think about these 15 lessons?
- Do you have some logical or empirical counterevidence for any of the 15 lessons?
- Have you lived any of the things described and do you want to share what you have learned?
Replies would be welcome in one of several languages.