What are the factors that cultivate and support entrepreneurship?
A new study from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, "Making of a Successful Entrepreneur," tries to outline what types of things actually influence the success or failure of a start-up business.
The full study, in PDF format, is here.
The study surveyed 549 company founders of successful businesses in high-growth industries including aerospace, defense, computing, electronics and health care.
According to a summary, 98 percent of these founders ranked prior work experience as an important success factor. In addition, learning from both successes (88 percent) and failures (78 percent) also played a key role in respondents' current successes. Forty percent cited lessons learned from failures as extremely important -- the second-highest "extremely important" rating.
"Entrepreneurs tell us their ranks remain small because others fear the risk and time required to start a venture," Vivek Wadhwa, leader of the research team, said in a statement. "But the current economy has given us an opportunity: We could harness the energy of the many workers who are now unemployed, teach them how to be entrepreneurs and provide them with seed financing for their ventures. These workers have nothing to lose, and the economy has a lot to gain."
Risk, said the study, is the biggest factor that holds people back from starting a business of their own.
Other factors include the time and effort of starting a new business, the difficulty raising capital (most in the survey say they used their own money--primarily savings), and family pressures to keep a steady, traditional job.
Some of the other factors cited by those whose businesses have been a success include the importance of faith and God, hard work, perseverance/determination, timing, spouse forbearance and support, optimism, naivety, and willingness to risk everything.
