By Eileen Sarson, NH Small Business Development Center

A new business is so exciting – the world is filled with possibilities when the venture is about to begin. The essence of that excitement has to be captured and held as precious, for going forward, there will be pitfalls and traps that may make you want to doubt yourself.

Moving from an Idea to a Business Plan can sound like a daunting prospect, so I like to introduce my entrepreneurs to the Timmons Model for Entrepreneurship. It ties together the things that you need to consider and can make the world of business seem very accessible.

Source: Timmons & Spinelli – New Venture Creation:
http://thespacecairns.com/do-you-have-an-idea/

At the base of the triangle is the Founder – all of the weight of risk and potential reward rests here initially. Babson College says there are 3 attributes of a good entrepreneur: they have something to prove, an excess of self-confidence, and a low IQ….

First, entrepreneurs are typically doing something to prove to themselves that a need can be filled, or an idea can be developed, or they just plan CAN do the very thing that someone has already told them “won’t work”. Entrepreneurs accept the risk, and work despite it.

Second, they work despite the risk because they believe in themselves enough to know that they will gain insight along the way that the initial plan will be revised and renewed as they pivot to take advantage of the new things they’ve learned. They also know it is okay to make mistakes. “Fail often to succeed faster” is their mantra.

Lastly—the “low IQ”…?! What do they mean by that? It is not meant to be an insensitive statement. Babson tries to make the point that it is not through thinking something through endlessly that new ventures get off of the ground. It is through Action. By low IQ, they merely mean that you must have a burning desire to move the venture forward and act upon the information at hand, rather than spend time forever analyzing. Babson so believes that thought and action go together, that they trademarked the statement, Entrepreneurial Thought and Action ®.

For inspiration and information about the traits of an entrepreneur, look to a professor out of the University of VA, Darden School of Business, on a site called The Big Think. Here, Professor Sarasvathy urges the world to know that entrepreneurs take an idea and they just ”push it one step further.”