While the most important trait of an entrepreneur must be his or her flexibility and adaptability, it’s also true that people who found start-ups often have some less-than-stellar qualities that help them be successful in their ventures.

Here’s a look at 10 qualities that some entrepreneurs share that may help them be great at starting a company, but not so great at existing in normal society. The quotes below are all taken from Jessica Livingston’s book, Founders at Work.

Entrepreneurs are…

1. Paranoid – “Distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions.” Sometimes founders have a good reason to be paranoid; other times, they are worried for nothing. But most founders are a little jumpy.

“[We were afraid] they would copy us, or what if they just shared this idea with Netscape? Or shared it with anyone else. You have to realize that in those days we had nothing – just the idea…There was not much to protect in terms of IP. Whoever built it first would win the market. So we were afraid and that’s why we kept that as the secret.” – Sabeer Bhatia, cofounder, Hotmail

“We worried about competitors, but it was an unreasonable fear. As a friend once pointed out, most gunshot wounds are self-inflicted.” – Philip Greenspun, cofounder, ArsDigita

2. Self-promoting – Since many founders are working alone or with small teams, they have to be their own biggest fans.

“After I sent out that first email, I went rollerblading around a big office park where Tellme was based. I went up to a random guy and said, “Hey man, have you checked out hotornot.com yet?” He said, “No, what’s that?” I said, “Dude, just go check it out!” Then I went home and watched our logs for Tellme and saw a hit come in 10 minutes later, and then more hits kept coming from different people within Tellme.” – James Hong, cofounder, HOT or NOT

3. Delusional – “Having an unshakable belief in something untrue.”

“I just remember the general feeling that there was very little to risk…Of course, all that is false; there’s a lot of risk and you are never fully equipped.” – Ann Winblad, cofounder, Open Systems

4. Insomniacs – Most founders will admit to a general lack of sleep and an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion at various stages of their company’s inception.

“We were just working around the clock, literally. What I would typically do is not sleep for 2 nights, then I would get 4 hours of sleep and go back to work for another 2 days in a row, and then get 4 hours, and so on. It was the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life. Sometimes I’d take 10-minute cat naps by just laying my head down on my shoulders – just so I’d get some REMs. As soon as the dreams would come, it resets your brain a little bit and you’re able to work again. We were sleeping at our desks.” – Steve Perlman, cofounder, WebTV

“As I was getting interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, or some big pub guy, all I remember was that he went off to the bathroom for a second, and they brought out my omelet. The next thing I remember, I woke up, and I was on the side of my own omelet, and there was no one at Buck’s. Everyone was gone. They just let me sleep.” – Max Levchin, cofounder, PayPal

5. Filled with visions of grandeur – Nearly all start-up founders think that they are going to have a huge impact, that they are going to change the world. Otherwise, why would they go through this hell?

“What held people together was the belief that you’re really going to change the world. I think that’s the nature of many startups. You believe that what you are doing is going to have a dramatic impact. You might not exactly know how, but you really have a belief. That keeps you going and going through many changes and a lot of uncertainty.” – Ray Ozzie, founder, Groove Networks

6. Stubborn – “The quality of being inflexible.” When you found a company, not everyone is going to agree with you along the way. Not only do you have to be too stubborn to go along with them, but you also have to be too stubborn to quit.

“I think one of the things that kills great things so often is compromise – letting people talk you out of what your gut is telling you. Not that I don’t value people’s input, but you have to have the strength to ignore it sometimes, too. If you feel really strongly, there might be something to that, and if you see something that other people don’t see, it could be because it’s that powerful and different. If everyone agrees, it’s probably because you’re not doing anything original.” – Evan Williams, cofounder, Blogger.com

7. Tall-tale tellers – Most founders wouldn’t call themselves liars, but most have, well, stretched the truth from time to time to make their companies seem more established.

“If anybody ever did want to come and visit us, we pulled all kinds of tricks to make ourselves seem more legit. When that first giant company wanted to buy us and sent people over to check us out, all we had in our so-called office was one computer…So we borrowed a few more computers and stuck them on desks, so it would look like there was more going on.” – Paul Graham, cofounder, Viaweb

“I met with 43 VCs…I remember saying to them, “Look, in 4 years, we’ll be doing $18 million in revenue with $4.5 million of profit. After that, the sky’s the limit I’m an ex-venture guy; I’m telling you the truth. We can get to $18 million in year 4, and 30 times $4 million is a $120 million valuation for the company at that time.” They all told me $18 million wasn’t interesting. And I’d say, “But most people will tell you $50 million, and you know they’re lying. I’m already discounting it because I’m a venture guy just like you are.” And they’d say, “Yeah, but $18 million just isn’t interesting.” So I changed my spreadsheet to say $50 million. And they said, “OK, that’s pretty interesting.” – James Currier, founder, Tickle

8. Obsessive – “Excessive in degree or nature; fixated.” This is the personality trait that leads entrepreneurs to spend hours and hours and hours and hours on the contemplation of one tiny problem. This is also the quality that can lead to incredible products.

“You have to be very diligent. You have to check every little detail. You have to be so careful that you haven’t left something out. You have to think harder and deeper than you normally would…It has all these kinds of things and not one bug ever found. Not one bug in the hardware, not one bug in the software. And you just can’t find a product like that nowadays. But, you see, I had it so intense in my head, and the reason for that was largely because it was part of me. Everything in there had to be so important to me. This computer was me.” – Steve Wozniak, cofounder, Apple Computer

9. Dirty – “Filthy.” This is often a result of sleeplessness, obsessiveness and stubbornness.

“My admin…tells stories about coming in in the morning and trying to clean up. She’d pick up a folded pizza box and get scared because she’d find a guy sleeping underneath it – it was covering his face. It was really bad. My dog, when my wife would bring him over, he would find burritos, because the place was just a pigsty.” – Steve Perlman, cofounder, WebTV

10. Moody – “Given to frequent changes in mood, sulky, temperamental.” I define this as the day-to-day changing of emotions and state of mind, often based on absolutely nothing.

“You wake up one morning and you feel great about the day, and you think, “We’re kicking ass.” And then you wake up the next morning, and you think “We’re dead.” And literally nothing’s changed…It’s completely irrational, but it’s exactly what you go through.” – Joe Kraus, cofounder, Excite

Photo by psd

Tags: Ann Winblad, Apple Computer, ArsDigita, Blogger.com, entrepreneurs, Evan Williams, Excite, Founders at Work, Groove Networks, HOT or NOT, Hotmail, James Currier, James Hong, Jessica Livingston, Joe Kraus, Max Levchin, Open Systems, Paul Graham, PayPal, Philip Greenspun, Ray Ozzie, Sabeer Bhatia, Start-ups, Steve Perlman, Steve Wozniak, Tickle, Viaweb, WebTV

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Internet entrepreneurs, Pure Incubation, Start-ups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.