The study of what it takes to be a successful NZ entrepreneur is fascinating because to be successful requires so many qualities that at times even seem to be at odds with each other. The surprising thing is that underneath all the surface complications and contradictions, there seems to be a great deal of agreement among entrepreneurs in New Zealand about the specific things they do to become successful vary widely.

Then again, maybe that shouldn’t be such a surprise. Think of it like a chess game full of possible moves you might take but won’t know until the game is in process. Still, the game has rules. How good you become at chess depends on how well you perform within those rules. So it takes great ingenuity and playing by the rules at the same time. So it is with a successful entrepreneur.

A NZ entrepreneur is a dreamer, someone with a vision, but someone who must put that vision into action. As a NZ entrepreneur you must commit your ideas to whatever it takes to bring them to reality. It takes courage and trust but also hope, discipline, and endurance. You start off solo but you must have other people in order to make your dreams real. You must be able to take risks in order to be successful. You must go out of your comfort zone and risk your time, your reputation, your money, your resources, and maybe even your personal life. At the same time, you have to be able to analyze your business at all levels so that you can make good choices and adjust to circumstances. You need the courage to take action and the courage to be responsible for all the outcomes of those actions.

You need to be the dreamer who has the vision, but you also need to have or acquire the technical and business skills needed to make the vision a reality and to sustain the reality in your business. You need to be a lifelong learner when it comes to your products, your market, technical skills, and business, leadership, and management skills, but you also need to put all those skills into action. So, you’ll have to manage all your resources including your time, your people, your projects, and your overall business. You have to be a dreamer and a risk taker and visionary in order to get your ideas started, but you have to have the discipline to see them all through. As someone said, “You have to do stuff in order to get stuff.” You have to be a dreamer who works long hard hours and confronts every problem so that the problem doesn’t become bigger. All successful entrepreneurs seem to be in agreement about these things.

There’s one more important, fascinating thing they all seem to agree on: whether you started your business just for the money or not, you will very likely not be successful without passion. There’s nothing wrong with liking money, and lots of it, but that alone won’t be the thing that sustains you through it all. That’s why so many NZ entrepreneurs become serial entrepreneurs; when the passion for one business dies, they often move on to another. In fact, many of them seem to feel that being able to start something new and fulfilling, real and valuable, is a key benefit of being an entrepreneur.