How to become a good entrepreneur? It is a complex question. If anyone had the magic recipe, it would know.

Let's start with the question: How to become a good entrepreneur? I mean here what are the steps to become a good entrepreneur? Are there steps you have to go through to become a good entrepreneur? What is a good entrepreneur? I take as a postulate a good entrepreneur is an entrepreneur who has succeeded in building a profitable businessÂ.

How do you start from scratch and build a profitable business?

A company to make a shortcut solves a problem encountered by its customers. It can do this by offering a product or a service. In return, the customers directly or indirectly remunerate the said company. The main steps to get there are:

• Identify a problem
• Provide a solution to the problem identified
• Sell the solution

These three stages are in my opinion the main ones. They have others, but these are essential. In the absence of these, there will be no business.

For a person to do this it will take qualities and skills. Some people have them but others acquire them.

the qualities required to become a good entrepreneur are:

Knowing how to sell: When you are an entrepreneur, the first mission is to sell. You have to convince the staff to work on it, you have to convince your solution will help your customers, you have to convince the investors. You have to sell constantly

Have adaptability: You have to constantly adapt. You don't talk the same to an employee as you do to a partner. Knowing how to put yourself at the same level as your interlocutor.

Have resilience: Believe in your project and bring it to fruition. Not to be influenced by the external environment, the weather. Keep your motivation despite the difficulties encountered because difficulties will arise.

Be organized: Keep a schedule

Have discipline: here I mean by discipline. Respecting what is planned. For example, if a meeting is scheduled every Thursday morning, it absolutely must be done.

Leadership: Having strong convictions to lead others.

These qualities innate to some people can of course be learned.

Alongside these qualities, you need a very powerful engine and a passion for what you do.

Have a powerful engine: Few of those who undertake to be rich make it. The most powerful engines are those found in the upper part of Maslow's pyramid. The more the purpose of the company is to make the world a better place or to solve complex problems, the more motivating it is. 

Many speak out on this subject, and I regularly read the same feedback, especially some with which I disagree. I, therefore, offer you a 2-part answer: (i) 3 elements not necessary to become a good entrepreneur and (ii) those which I think are.

What is not necessary.?

To be passionate.

They say that you have to be passionate to start a business, I think this argument reveals a deep error of logic, according to which you can only work hard when you are passionate. It is simply wrong.

I only set up companies in industries that I knew nothing about, and with which I had no particular affinity. So it was not a hypothetical passion that started me, but an opportunity. A gap in the market that we thought we could address.

Conversely, to undertake in a sector that fascinates, it is the risk of losing objectivity/rationality for the decision-making.

What is really exciting to me is the exercise of creating and developing a business, recruiting, selling, structuring, etc.

Take a lot of risks

The lexical field of risk is closely linked to entrepreneurship. It is said that entrepreneurs are Risk TakersÂ.

However, this is not the case for the majority of entrepreneurs that I know. None of them got into fundamentally risky ventures. Of course, it is systematically a cost/benefit calculation, and the risk (if there is a risk) is always calculated and limited as much as possible.

Have connections / relationships

Again, by launching businesses in fields I knew nothing about, I didn't benefit from industry-specific connections, and looking back that's probably a blessing.

I (we have) had to go to coal, prospect, contact hundreds of people to create a real understanding of the market, and create the product as close as possible to their expectations, etc.

What is needed?

Endurance

As an entrepreneur, sometimes you are going to have to roll up your sleeves as you've never done before. Like you never thought you could. On the menu :

• 100-hour weeks,
• Lots of trips,
• Long-haul flights,
• Some years without holidays, etc.

And all this cheering, for years. Indeed, the average time between inception and an exit is 8-10 years. What if you thought you would become a millionaire in 2 years? Not so sure.