Why are some people good at business and others not?

Mostly willingness to take a risk (40%) + Ambition/Drive (40%)
with a little luck (10%) and intelligence (10%) mixed into it too...

I'd put willingness to take a risk at 20%, ambition/drive at 50% luck at 5% and Intelligence at 25%.

It just a certain part of the brain that is more developed.

Good question. One of the most common traits I noticed among successful people is that a lot of them think in mathematical ratios and efficiencies. For example, knowing how much the ROI is for each 100 or 1 mb block of bandwidth. In addition, they are able to extrapolate and come up with alternative "what if" scenarios. I think it is this ability that allows them to spot potentially profitable, not so profitable, and downright money losing opportunities.

Many also share the trait of not worrying about 'averaging' sunk costs that gets most people. They realize that for the loss it is and move on.

You need balls to survive in this biz.

vision...

It requires experience, education and some luck!

id say about 5% of the population is very good at biz, and most of them dont post here

right attitude
determination
critical thinking and problem solving skills
ability to learn quickly and adapt

To answer your question, you must first answer the question of why the same people keep failing or are always less successful than others.


Whats up Colin ?

Ha ha, conservative pussy! Sit back and cherry pick the good deals with that big brain of yours ;)

i remember reading that the top rated ceos have very similar brain chemistry to psychopaths, you don?t want any emotion in business decisions, I think that?s one of the hardest things

I think a lot of it is just personality. I think most people like the idea of having a steady job with a reliable income. The idea of going to work 40 hours a week and knowing how much they will get on pay day puts a lot of people of ease and the idea of not knowing and risking things to forge their own path scares them and they are not willing to put up the risk. Sometimes I think the idea of investing any amount of money into something without a guaranteed for some people is something they are just not willing to do for whatever reason.

Here is a good example. A friend of mine gets laid off from his job. He works for a construction company and had a hire back date 90 days away when a new contract the company has will kick in. So he basically has 3 months off on unemployment with nothing to do. He asks me how to make some money online and I give him some advice. The advice I give him will have him spend about $200 (his wife was still working so they were not hurting for money). I tell him if he works hard during his layoff he could have a decent little side business going by the time he gets back to work. After a full day of showing him stuff and giving him advice I leave. The next day he tells me he isn't going to do it because he doesn't feel comfortable investing the $200 into something he doesn't know that much about.

So instead he spent the money on x box live and played halo. Six months later when I point out to him that he had spent about $100 on video games over those three months (xbox live cost plus buying another new game) he just shrugs. I then say, "For an extra $100 and the same amount of time you investing in learning how to kick people's asses at Halo you could have a business going right now." He just kind of slunk down in the couch and admitted that I had a good point, but it seemed like a lot of work to get things going.

So to me it takes a certain type of personality just to decide to make the jump and start a business . Of those people that start and run their own business I think they have a make up of 15% intelligence and ideas, %15 know how and learning (knowing or learning about the business they are getting into), 30% courage to try and be willing to fail and 40% hard work and ambition to put in the time to make it work.

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.