What makes a good entrepreneur?  Here’s what I think:

• Work Ethic – stays up late, wakes up early; first to the office, last to leave.  Systems, processes, and anything else one might need to know in order to do virtually any job (so long as it’s not overly technical) can usually be taught.  Work ethic typically cannot be taught.  It’s a way of life.
• Transparency – good entrepreneurs keep their partners and employees abreast of what’s going on in their organizations.  Especially early-stage ventures.  Secrecy hurts more than transparency and often results in diminished trust from employees.
• Leadership – the best leaders lead by example.  It’s hard to take orders from a superior that updates their Facebook status at 10am with a picture of themselves golfing while you’re slaving away in a cubicle!  Especially when you get an instant message later that day asking for updates on your work.  Doesn’t work.  Lead by example and never take credit for someone else’s work!
• Execution – vision is great.  Execution is better.  I speak to countless entrepreneurs each week.  Most would be better labeled as “dreamers”–not entrepreneurs.  Why?  They can never put their dreams or “vision” into motion without the help of real entrepreneurs.  Real entrepreneurs are talented enough to dream it and execute it.

Sadly, “being an entrepreneur” for some is much like high school.  Status and popularity take precedence over good grades (or business success).  Attention-starved entrepreneurs enter themselves into competitions to become one of the coveted winners of the many awards that are given out each year.  Why?  Most will tell you “it’s all about PR”.  I don’t buy it.  For most, it’s all about status, validation of one’s arrival onto the business scene, and joining the brotherhood of other attention-starved folks that don’t have anything better to do than shmooze with their business brethren on the golf course.

I would love to see those offering awards talk with and survey the employees of each entrepreneur’s business.  See what they’re really like in terms of their work ethic, transparency, leadership/example, and personal execution.

Awards mean nothing.  They make for cute decorations in an office…but aside from that, they are a means of giving one a big head, false confidence, and serve as a distraction from what being an entrepreneur is all about (working your tail off and earning your keep).

In summary, if you’re an entrepreneur, don’t waste your time trying to get noticed by the wrong people.  Running a successful business zero media coverage is infinitely more exciting than having a nice write-up in a local magazine while your company is on the verge of bankruptcy.  Aspire for success, not attention.

About a year ago I had a lofty goal.  I was going to create the premier niche sports-related social networking platform.  It was going to be cool.  Everyone would use it and love it.

My partner and I invested a lot of our own dough into the company, brought on a talented programmer, and went to work.  Then we ran out of money.  Which led us to making our rounds with the various angel and seed funds in our local market.  What a disaster that was!  Why?

Who wants to fund a half-finished pipe dream with little-to-no proof of concept?  Would you?  It’s easy as an entrepreneur to get excited about your product/service/website/whatever without having any traction.  After getting smacked around a bit by some seasoned investors, it becomes easier to both see and accept the weaknesses in your business.  Traction is everything.  An idea is nothing.

My second go at pitching investors has been a much more enjoyable experience.  It’s actually fun.  Landing meetings has been relatively easy in comparison to my previous experience.  Our presentation skills and general know-how are considerably greater.  Our understanding of where we need to be as a business is clearer.

So, what’s helped us get far with investors this time around?

• Fully-developed technology that his ready to take to market
• Core management team is in place
• A few “Big Name” clients
• Three strategic partnerships that carry a lot of weight
• Confidence

The first four items listed above are self-explanatory.  ”Confidence” is a bit more ambiguous; I’ve pitched with confidence and I’ve pitched scared to death.  Let me outline the difference…

Pitching with confidence starts with having a business you believe in.  When working and talking with fellow entrepreneurs, I hear the same question over and over again after an entrepreneur is finished telling me about their business: “so, what do you think?  Is it a good idea?”  Hmmm…

If you are asking that question, you are likely facing one of these two problems:

1. You don’t believe in your business
2. You have a lot of faith in your business/idea but haven’t proven anything yet (i.e., you don’t know if anyone will buy your product/service once it actually exists, etc.)

If you can take care of problem #2, problem #1 will take care of itself.   If you cannot take care of problem #2, the writing is on the wall, my friend.  Don’t spin your tires trying to raise money on a nice idea with a flashy PowerPoint presentation.

Imagine how much more confidence you have when pitching if you have customer reviews/testimonials and some social proof!  The question of whether or not your product works or whether or not anyone will buy from you is no longer an issue.

Being confident in your business makes all the difference.  Don’t waste your time pitching investors until you are 100% confident in your business.  Don’t ask for money to try to figure out whether or not you should be confident.  You need to get there on your own first.

With my business, now that we know that our technology works, we’re confident.  We’ve seen it work.  It works really, really well.  It impresses our clients and it impresses our investors.  We have testimonials from clients thanking us for the wonderful tools we’ve built.  That’s when you know you’ve got something special.  That’s when you can go into a meeting with investors and pitch with confidence.

You will notice this as the first post in this blog’s history…which isn’t entirely true.  I just deleted the old junk as it was both uninteresting and not quite the same direction that I’d like to take moving forward.  Stay tuned for periodic updates.

If we haven’t already, let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.