What Makes a Great Entrepreneur?

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend who has already created and sold one business. He had just finished speaking with a class on the traits that make a great entrepreneur. We started discussing what makes a great entrepreneur.

Our conversation was filled with a lot of the cliches – some true and some not so much. We’ve heard things like: An entrepreneur is hard working, motivated, and creative. An entrepreneur never takes no for an answer. An entrepreneur sees difficulties as opportunities. To an extent these are all true, but they are only part of the picture. The truth is there is only one thing all successful entrepreneurs have in common.

What is that you ask? Customers. Think about it. Whether they grew their own business from scratch or invented something and sold it to another company, all great entrepreneurs had people who were willing to buy their product. With Instagram, they build a business that only had one real customer. Facebook was their customer. It sounds odd, but Facebook was willing to pay $1 billion for their company. You and I were never customers of Instagram. In reality, we were more like the product. They only had one customer.

Most businesses have many customers. They have many people willing to pay for a product or service. Being an entrepreneur is not really about growing businesses, it is about creating customers. Without customers, you can’t be a successful entrepreneur. Customers are the one thing all great entrepreneurs have in common.