Week three: Characteristics of entrepreneurs and motives for enterprise, writes CAROLINE MADDEN

‘WHAT MAKES Bill Cullen tick?” This probing question about the psychological motivations of the star of TV3’s Apprentice proved a stumbling block for several of the candidates who made it through to the gruelling interview round of the most recent series.

According to recruitment consultant David Bloch, the interrogator who posed this brain-teaser, the correct answer was “insecurity”. He believes Cullen’s drive stems from the grinding poverty of his childhood in the inner-city slums of Summerhill in Dublin.

It is a fairly popular assumption that successful entrepreneurs are driven not by a desire to become rich, but more often by an unquenchable need to prove their worth to the world and to prove wrong those who looked down on them in the past.

Of course, everyone likes a good “rags to riches” story, as the success of Cullen’s autobiography, It’s a Long Way from Penny Apples, proved. And who doesn’t enjoy seeing the underdog triumph against the odds? But is insecurity really the driving force behind many successful entrepreneurs or is this just an urban myth?

British businesswoman Deborah Meaden of BBC’s Dragons’ Den fame is scathing of this simplified answer to the complex question of what gets entrepreneurs out of bed every morning.

In her book, Common Sense Rules – What You Really Need to Know About Business, Meaden says: “Many entrepreneurs who have built up large businesses (and who often have an ego to match) like to tell tales of how they struggled with adversity.

“They would have us believe that their desperately sad childhood spurred them on to succeed against the greatest odds. Of course, it makes a great story, but ultimately it is just that: a story.”

She argues that plenty of people have tough starts in life from which they do not recover, while many extremely successful entrepreneurs benefited from comfortable upbringings and expensive educations. Her point is that a person’s background does not determine their success or failure in the business world.

Even Cullen doesn’t seem to share Bloch’s “insecurity” theory. It is worth watching the clip on www.theapprenticeireland.com for an insight into the mindset of an entrepreneur, provided by Cullen himself.

He says he was inspired by “the best business mentor that anyone ever had” – his mother – who advised him to take responsibility for his own future. He also says the benefits of becoming an entrepreneur include being your own boss, which brings the freedom to do what you want.

Interestingly, this view reflects the findings of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2008 report, which showed that the greatest driver of Irish entrepreneurs was the desire to be independent.

The report also found that Irish entrepreneurs were far less likely to be motivated by money than their European counterparts. Only 15 per cent of Irish respondents said increasing their income was their main motivation, compared to an EU average of 26 per cent.

The report also revealed an emerging trend: the proportion of Irish early-stage entrepreneurs who started a business because they had no better choice (dubbed “necessity entrepreneurs”) rose from 6 per cent in 2007 to 18 per cent in 2008. “So while most entrepreneurs in Ireland are motivated to start a business by a perceived opportunity, one in five is now motivated by necessity,” the report concluded.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, Tom Hayes of Enterprise Ireland,which provides support to start-up businesses with export potential, says this is “not a bad time” for an aspiring entrepreneur to go out on their own, as business costs have fallen considerably. Furthermore, many large global corporations have emerged out of recessionary times, he says.

Hayes has observed that entrepreneurs who launch high-potential start-ups are independent types who are determined and committed. “They are really in it for the long haul because these things take an enormous amount of time.”

They are usually “rounded” individuals, he adds, who have an ability to spot a gap in the market and to fill that gap with technological innovation, while also being able to “pull together” a team of people.

Meaden has encountered hundreds of entrepreneurs through Dragons’ Den and has identified common characteristics that create the “entrepreneurial spirit” she believes is vital to success.

These include passion, focus, an insatiable desire to succeed, and loss aversion (by which she means an intense dislike of losing).

So, if you’re a competitive type and prefer to make your own decisions, then entrepreneurship could be a genuinely rewarding career path for you – whatever your background.

Watch Philip Morrow of PRM Group discuss the characteristics of entrepreneurs and motives for enterprise, along with the channels of distribution and marketing mix at irishtimes.com/business/education or on eoy.tv, the dedicated website for the series.

Next week: Diversification as a strategy for growth