Insight Into Entrepreneurship

June 17, 2010

Interview with Renee Martin, co-author of the book The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Who Built Great Businesses Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies For Success

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Mike Carruthers:
Do you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?

Renee Martin:
The characteristics of a good entrepreneur are someone who is willing to look around for a trend that no one is taking advantage of.
 

Renee Martin, co-author of the book The Risk Takers... 

That’s what Robert Stevenson did from Geeksquad. He noticed that everyone started to use PC’s in their home and that when their PC’s crashed they were going to go into a panic. And so what Robert did was say, “You know I’m good at this, I’m going to start making home service calls” and started Geeksquad.

The other interesting thing entrepreneur’s do is buck convention.

For example; Gary Heavin the founder of Curves bucked the conventional wisdom that gyms had to be big, glitzy. He recognized that they could be small, inexpensive and now there are thousands of them throughout the company. And then all entrepreneurs eventually trust their guts and go for it.

If you have an idea and the persistence to see it through, Renee says, don’t let the naysayers tell you that it’s a bad idea or the economy’s too tough.

Many businesses that actually started in the depression and not only still around but are thriving today – for example; Oceanspray cranberries, Yellow Pages USA, Hewlett Packard. So there always are business opportunities.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here