Is There a Gene for Business?

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We know we can teach people elements of the entrepreneurial mindset and skill set, but one thing needs inducement and the other involves self perception. We can clearly teach people to identify new business opportunities, and we can teach them how to differentiate a good idea from a good opportunity.

In fact much of what we do at Babson is to teach students how to think and act like entrepreneurs. So we teach students how to finance their ideas, how to assess market demand, how to scale the business, mitigate risk, etc. But the passion that entrepreneurs must have to take their ideas all the way through to creating a viable new business enterprise is not so teachable. And the passion we are talking about is for their idea.

They need either to be in love with it or learn to love it if they are going to have the perseverance to see it through. I have had many people who had not shown any entrepreneurial orientation who got switched on by learning about entrepreneurship.

The other, less teachable part of entrepreneurship is the belief that the person has the ability to turn their idea into a business. We often find people with a good opportunity, but they don't have enough confidence in themselves. Education can help here as well, but equally important is surrounding the would-be entrepreneur with others who share his/her excitement for the idea.

Perman is a staff writer for BusinessWeek in New York.