The Entrepreneurial Tripod

Entrepreneurial tripod is a term used to refer to the three main pillars of entrepreneurial success. For an entrepreneur to succeed, he/she must stand on three “legs”.

The Entrepreneurial Tripod

The first leg is the entrepreneur’s personality. The entrepreneur must have requisite qualities,   attributes, attitudes and experience in order to succeed. These attributes and characteristics includes:

Creativity: “Creativity is the spark that drives the development of new products or services, or way of doing business. It is the push for innovation and improvement. It is the continuous learning, questioning, and thinking outside the box (Buame, 2012).”

Risk-taking: Successful entrepreneurs are risk takers. They take risk, certainly – because without risk there is no challenge – but they only take risks they believe they understand and can manage. They think seriously about all the risks inherent in any venture (not just financial risk) and ensure they have understanding or control over the downside before undertaking it.

Vision: Helen Keller, an American author, political activist, and lecturer, who was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree once said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Any successful entrepreneur knows where he or she wants to go. He or she has a vision or concept of what their firm can be. For example, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer fame wanted his firm to manufacture microcomputers that will be used by every tom, dick and harry from school kids to business people. He also wanted it to be an integral part of a person’s life in terms of learning and communicating. This propelled Apple to be a major competitor in the microcomputer industry. Not all entrepreneurs have predetermined vision for their firm. In many cases, this vision develop over time as the individual begins to realize what the firm is and what it can become.

Flexibility: Here, flexibility is the ability to adjust quickly in response to changing market. A story is told about an entrepreneur who started a fancy shop selling only French pastries but customers wanted to buy muffins as well. He in turn modified his vision to accommodate their needs instead of risking the loss of these customers. This is flexibility in action!

Self-confidence: Self-confidence relates to self-assurance in one’s personal judgement, ability, power etc. It usually emanates from thorough planning, which reduces uncertainty and risk level.

The second leg is the business opportunity identified by the entrepreneur. It must be prospective, viable and feasible. Prospective means the business opportunity must be able to thrive for about two to five years. A business opportunity is said to be feasible if it is possible and practical to do easily or conveniently.

The third leg is the nature of the organizational environment. The organizational environment is the set of forces surrounding an organization that have the potential to affect the way it operates and its access to scarce resources. This must be well understood, enabling, friendly and supportive.

Just as a three-legged chair needs all three legs in order to stand well, an entrepreneur must stand on these three legs (the tripod) at the same time in order to succeed.

Reference

Buame, Samuel. Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Education, Venture Creation and SME

Management in Ghana. Weija-Accra: University of Ghana Business School, 2012.  Print.