Entrepreneurs understand opportunities

[duncan drennan]

I was reading "Perfectionists are losers" on Escape from Cubicle Nation, and this bit jumped out at me.

When you sit back and wait until you are perfectly prepared for an opportunity, it passes you by. What highly productive and successful people do is spend as little time as possible at the edge of opportunities, agonizing whether or not to move forward.

Instead, they jump in with both feet and sink or swim quickly. After lots of real-world experience, they fine tune their understanding of the types of opportunities that will most likely be a success and the kinds of situations that will best utilize their talents.

So what do you think? Are the successful entrepreneurs the ones who managed to understand and act on the right opportunities, or is it just luck? How do you evaluate opportunities? How do you find them?

[Chatmaster]

I think you create your own luck in a way. I have to agree with the fact that "Perfectionists are loosers" I mean look at Bill Gates for example, Microsoft still isn't perfect

[Dave A]

look at Bill Gates for example, Microsoft still isn't perfect

Classic!

I know this, perfection is hard to achieve - far more demanding than achieving business success. I suspect waiting for the "perfect moment" is actually just a form of procrastination.

[Moneymaker]

Interesting comments, but the truth is that most successful people have either a personal or a business plan. This plan is often committed to in writing, so when an opportunity presents itself they are able to reflect quickly on their business plan and say either "Yes, that fits in.", or "No, not part of my plan." Everyone else loses out to these folk or they get panicked into making a bad decision trying to get in before the smarter crowd.

Free advice: If you want to improve your chances of success have a written business or personal plan detailing your goals, aspirations and dreams. Then every day do something towards attaining one of those goals. In a years time you should have made 365 or 366 movements in the right direction towards success..... ;-)

[johnnygirl]

i believe it's also necessary to ALWAYS be looking for opportunities.

an opportunity is a problem waiting to be solved. an entrepreneur must possess the talent to see the pattern from problem to solution. i don't think this is a skill that can be acquired through training, i believe it is a natural talent.

and then of course he needs the b@lls to jump into this problem and fight his way to the solution, with passion. a clever man taught me: "go big or go home" - and i think that applies here.