The 4 Types of Entrepreneur and Why You Need to Be Each One If you want your business to grow, you need to grow, too.
By Scott Oldford Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
If you want to grow and scale your business over the next year, you need to have all four of these entrepreneur personality types.
Related: 10 Personality Traits of Legendary Entrepreneurs
The problem is, this is hard because you're a single person with a single personality.
But, if you want to build a successful business, there are several traits you must possess, and in essence, four "hats" you must wear. People often have one or two but struggle to embrace all four. In my experience after working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, this leads to a lot of trouble as you grow.
In the beginning, most entrepreneurs are true entrepreneurs who innovate and create and break things. They are reckless, and to get an idea off the ground, you often have to be. But, as you transition from six to seven figures, you must find a way to embody all four of these entrepreneur personality types into who you are, otherwise you limit your ability to keep growing your business.
Becoming all four will not come naturally to you, but your future success depends on it, because those who do are the ones who create businesses that have a big and lasting impact on the world.
1. Entrepreneur
In the beginning, most of us are entrepreneurs who get excited, come up with ideas, move at ridiculous speeds, and break and fix things. It's a lot of fun because you literally make something out of nothing.
You will always need this personality type, as this is what forces you to innovate and ensure your next project is the best one yet. But, if you wear this entrepreneurial hat across all your business at all times, you have an issue because your finances, operations and customer service doesn't need an entrepreneur.
These areas require a different version of you.
Those who refuse to transition away from being "just" an entrepreneur are the ones who struggle to build a scalable and sustainable business. Because to build an empire that continues to grow, you must embrace the next entrepreneur personality type ...
Related: The 5 Personality Traits All Entrepreneurs Must Have
2. Investor
As an investor, you must look into the finances and projections, and understand where you are now and in the future: short-term, medium term and long-term.
You need to understand your cash flow and remove emotional decision-making from the table, so you make the "right" decisions that help you to continue your growth month-on-month. As an entrepreneur, everything is a hustle. It's manic and chaotic, and this is fine up to a certain point.
But, at a certain point you must embrace becoming an investor, because you cannot get to seven figures and beyond without it. This is when you bring order into your business and lay the foundations for exponential growth, which then allows you to embody the next entrepreneur personality type ...
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3. Business owner
When you transition into becoming a business owner, you create the processes, systems and operations so your business can run without you.
Until this point, you feel like you are your business. Everything runs through you, and you're involved in every piece of it. At this stage, most entrepreneurs have a mix of emotions because they like the idea of growing their business and regaining freedom and time, but they don't like the idea of letting go.
But, let go you must. You must delegate. You must outsource. And you must not micro-manage.
This is when you turn your business into a legitimate one, which allows you to embrace the final entrepreneur personality type ...
Related: 5 Personality 'Flaws' That Are Entrepreneurial Gold
4. CEO
As a CEO, you are the visionary who leads everyone else. You no longer do all the work, but everything depends on you managing and leading everyone else who does.
The problem here is, leadership doesn't come naturally to most people.
When you create a business out of nothing, you don't do so with a vision of leading an empire. It's you and a small team as you turn up each day to hustle, but you must reach a point where this is no longer the case, because few seven-figure businesses are built by hustling and breaking things.
You must evolve from being "just" an entrepreneur, because although your entrepreneurial drive is where the magic begins, it isn't enough to build long-lasting and scaleable success.
Related: 25 Common Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs
Many days you will be all four of these entrepreneur personality types.
In the morning you may dive into your accounts and project for the future (investor), before leading your management team and directing them what to do next (CEO). In the afternoon, you figure out a new process to make an existing system more effective (business owner), before you meet your partner in the evening and envision a new product that will disrupt your industry (entrepreneur).
After working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last 10 years, I've found many people are good at two of these entrepreneur personality types, but struggle to embody all four. But, those who do are the ones that create the biggest impact, and own the businesses that are changing the world today.
So right now, take into account all four of these entrepreneur personality types. Which are you already? What do you need to work on? Which one(s) do you resist?
The next time you come across a challenge, opportunity or obstacle, think about which one you need to be. You need to adapt to all four, and it's your job to decide which "hat" to where, and when. It's the only way you will scale from six to seven figures and beyond.
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