Never A Dull Moment: 9 Entrepreneurial Personality Types

Not enough consideration is given to entrepreneurial character. What makes an entrepreneur successful, or may lead him to fail?

Starting and growing your own business requires many skills to be successful. Take a look at the business personality types and find out what you need to succeed. Are you Bill Gates, a Visionary, or an Improver like Body Shop founder, Anita Roddick?

Your business personality type are the traits and characteristics of your personality that blend with the needs of the business. If you better understand your business personality, then you can give your company the best part of you. Find others to help your business in areas you aren’t prepared to fulfill.

It is also necessary to understand that there are many models and examples of personality types, among them the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI 16 personality types. None are completely accurate or complete, but nevertheless they are very helpful in forming a better understanding of how people work together. Many models, this one included, do not include consideration of destructive entrepreneurial personality types.  Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were well known to have been raging intolerant tyrants at times.  Many of us have also encountered entrepreneurs in ours careers who exhibited combinations of both successful, constructive types and destructive types.

In this model there are 9 key types of personality and understanding each will help you enjoy your business more and provide your company with what it needs to grow. This entrepreneur personality profile is based on the 9-point circle of the Enneagram.

Begin identifying your dominant personality theme and understand how you operate in your business.

The 9 Personality Types of Entrepreneurs

1. The Improver: If you operate your business predominately in the improver mode, you are focused on using your company as a means to improve the world. Your overarching motto is: morally correct companies will be rewarded working on a noble cause. Improvers have an unwavering ability to run their business with high integrity and ethics.

Personality Alert: Be aware of your tendency to be a perfectionist and over-critical of employees and customers.

Entrepreneur example: Anita Roddick, Founder of The Body Shop.

2. The Advisor: This business personality type will provide an extremely high level of assistance and advice to customers. The advisor’s motto is: the customer is right and we must do everything to please them. Companies built by advisors become customer focused.

Personality Alert: Advisors can become totally focused on the needs of their business and customers that they may ignore their own needs and ultimately burn out.

Entrepreneur example: John W. Nordstrom, Founder Nordstrom.

3. The Superstar: Here the business is centered around the charisma and high energy of the Superstar CEO. This personality often will cause you to build your business around your own personal brand.

Personality Alert: Can be too competitive and workaholics.

Entrepreneur example: Donald Trump, CEO of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts.

4. The Artist: This business personality is the reserved but highly creative type. Often found in businesses demanding creativity such as web design and ad agencies. As an artist type you’ll tend to build your business around the unique talents and creativities you have.

Personality Alert: You may be overly sensitive to your customer’s responses even if the feedback is constructive. Let go the negative self-image.

Entrepreneur example: Scott Adams, Creator of Dilbert.

5. The Visionary: A business built by a Visionary will often be based on the future vision and thoughts of the founder. You will have a high degree of curiosity to understand the world around you and will set-up plans to avoid the landmines.

Personality Alert: Visionaries can be too focused on the dream with little focus on reality. Action must proceed vision.

Entrepreneurial example: Bill Gates, Founder of MicroSoft Inc.

6. The Analyst: If you run a business as an Analyst, your company is focus on fixing problems in a systematic way. Often the basis for science, engineering or computer firms, Analyst companies excel at problem solving.

Personality Alert: Be aware of analysis paralysis. Work on trusting others.

Entrepreneurial example: Intel Founder, Gordon Moore.

7. The Fireball: A business owned and operated by a Fireball is full of life, energy and optimism. Your company is life-energizing and makes customers feel the company has a get it done attitude in a fun playful manner.

Personality Alert: You may over commit your teams and act to impulsively. Balance your impulsiveness with business planning.

Entrepreneurial example: Malcolm Forbes, Publisher, Forbes Magazine.

8. The Hero: You have an incredible will and ability to lead the world and your business through any challenge. You are the essence of entrepreneurship and can assemble great companies.

Personality Alert: Over promising and using force full tactics to get your way will not work long term. To be successful, trust your leadership skills to help others find their way.

Entrepreneurial example: Jack Welch, CEO GE.

9. The Healer: If you are a Healer, you provide nurturing and harmony to your business. You have an uncanny ability to survive and persist with an inner calm.

Personality Alert: Because of your caring, healing attitude toward your business, you may avoid outside realities and use wishful thinking. Use scenario planning to prepare for turmoil.

Entrepreneurial example: Ben Cohen, Co-Founder Of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.

Each business personality type can succeed in the business environment if you stay true to your character. Knowing firmly what your strong traits are can act as a compass for your small business. If you are building a team, this insight is invaluable. For the solo business owners, understand that you may need outside help to balance your business personality.

Ballmer Resignation From Microsoft and Missed Strategic Inflection Points

Missed Opportunities

Much has been written this week about the announcement from Steve Ballmer that he will resign from Microsoft within a year.  Microsoft shares bounced upward on the news, giving an indication of investor sentiment, which might have been expected to drive the stock down. Ballmer, a flamboyant extrovert has exasperated many observers, as the exact opposite of Bill Gates. Some bloggers have commented with praise on his 13 years as President of Microsoft.  But no less than Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, who also writes for All Things D, quietly tweeted an endorsement of the blog post below by Lauren Goode at “All Things D.”  Goode chronicles the major product and strategic events over Ballmer’s helmsmanship of Microsoft. Perhaps the most glaring blunder has to be also the most recent: Windows 8.  Even the most casual observer probably senses that Microsoft lost its way as the PC business began to contract, and failed to make new strategic moves quickly enough.  Was the corporate culture at Microsoft resistant to major structural change?  Was Ballmer himself too much of an old PC guy to get it?  We will begin to learn the facts over the next few months and years, as the story unfolds.

Strategic Inflection Points: When Companies Lose Their Way

Reblogged from All Things D

By Lauren Goode

Better Late Than Never? Ballmer Product Pipeline Shows a Very Mixed Record for Microsoft.

AUGUST 24, 2013 AT 8:13 AM PT

Larger-than-life CEO Steve Ballmer will be remembered for a lot of things during his 13-year tenure at Microsoft, but what about the actual products he oversaw?

Overall, it is a very mixed bag, with Microsoft late on every major game-changer of Ballmer’s time in office, while rivals like Apple and Google surged ahead. That includes in MP3 players, multi-touch smartphones, multi-touch tablets, search, smart assistants and wireless beaming of video.

Better late than never? Not so much.

To get an idea of that, here’s a timeline of notable moments in Microsoft’s product history since 2000 and how they fared:

Windows 2000: Microsoft celebrates its 25th anniversary and releases the Windows 2000 operating system the same year Ballmer is promoted to CEO. Microsoft continues to upgrade and support Windows 2000 until July of 2010, during which time multiple vulnerabilities in the system were exposed.

Pocket PC 2000: Microsoft announced the Pocket PC 2000, the company’s first step in the personal digital assistant market. Two years later, the Pocket PC 2002 is released. Some of these Pocket PCs are sold as “phone editions,” meaning they can make cellular calls. Five years later, Microsoft phases out the Pocket PC and Smartphone brands in favor of the more overarching Windows Mobile brand.

Windows XP: Touted as the “biggest release since Windows 95,” Microsoft releases the Windows XP operating system in October 2001 with variations of the system for both home and business users. “It features login screens for home and corporate systems alike — something many Windows 95/98 users have never seen,” CNET wrote at the time. About 17 million copies were sold in its first two months.

Xbox: Microsoft jumps into the videogame console market with the release of the Xbox in 2001, one of company’s most successful consumer products to date.

SPOT watch: SPOT watches —or “smart personal object technology” — hit the market in 2004, made by Fossil, Suunto and other watchmakers and developed by Microsoft. SPOT watches stick around until 2008, until Microsoft threw in the towel on the niche product.

Zune: Microsoft launches its iPod competitor, the Zune, in 2006. And although Microsoft will go on to release several more models,including the Zune HD, the product line is discontinued in October 2011. Its Zune Marketplace is also being phased out, to be replaced by Xbox Music and Xbox Video.

Windows Vista: The new OS, released in 2007, focuses on security and has a redesigneduser interface. But it isn’t very well-received and eventually earns a spot on TIME’s “10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade” list. AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg will later write that Windows 7, launched in 2009, “leaves Vista in the dust.”

Bing: Replacing Live search, Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, is unveiled atD7 and released in June of 2009. “Search and advertising, we are a small share … It’s all about Google. They have share, we don’t have share,” said Ballmer. It’s still all about Google. According to a recent report by comScore, the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant grabbed 66.7 percent of the marketshare, while Bing only grabbed 17.9 percent.

Retail stores: Microsoft announces its plans to open up a chain of Microsoft retail stores in 2009. In October of that year, it opens the first one in Scottsdale, Ariz. By 2012, the company has nearly two dozen stores across the U.S. and, in 2013, Microsoft partners with Best Buy to create Windows Stores inside more than 600 Best Buy locations in North America. So far, the Microsoft stores have not caught on as Apple stores have.

Kin: Remember the Kin smartphone in 2010? Yeah, we didn’t think so.

Windows Phone OS: Later that year, in an attempt to catch up with Apple, Google and RIM in the fast-growing smartphone market, Microsoft revamps its aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile, and replaces it with the new Windows Phone OS.

Kinect: “Project Natal” is finally revealed in 2010: Microsoftannounces the Kinect, its motion-sensor gaming device that is supposed to breathe new life into the aging Xbox. At the D: Dive Into Media conference in February 2013, Microsoft execsreveal that 76 million Xbox consoles and 24 million Kinectshave sold to date. Microsoft consistently beats out the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Wii as the top-selling console, even as the videogame industry stumbles.

Windows 8: On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launches the Windows 8 operating system and the Microsoft Surface tablet. The response to both is tepid. Hardware makers call out Windows 8 as confusing to consumers. Within months Microsoft has to assure users that it is making fixes to the OS. And, in July 2013, it is revealed that Microsoft has only made $853 million in revenue on Surface tablets between the October 2012 launch and the close of the fiscal year.

Xbox One: Gamers and “regular” consumers eagerly await the launch of the Xbox One, the company’s $499, next-gen gaming console, due out this holiday season, as well as“Project Spark,” a build-your-own-game app for Microsoft platforms. But, even before its debut, there is a load of controversy about a range of issues that tarnish the announcement.

Better Late Than Never? Ballmer Product Pipeline Shows a Very Mixed Record for Microsoft..

Now This Is Funny: Top Ten Reasons You’re Not Ready for Today’s Online World

This is not the Letterman Show.  But it is very funny..  Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystem‘s keynote address at an enterprise computing conference held in Pacific Grove a month or so ago. Scott is not particularly well known for his humor and perhaps better known informally for his appreciation of ice hockey.  Someone must have helped him with this Top Ten list list of “reasons you ( or your Chief Information Officer) is not ready for today’s new online world.”

Top Ten List of Reasons You Are Not Ready For Today’s Online World.

10. “GolfShot” is the #1 cloud app on your mobile phone. This is McNealy’s poke at himself, a long time golf nut. 

9.  Your StarTac blurts out that “you’ve got mail.”  

8. You think Gmail is a typo

7. Myspace is your social media site

6. COBOL programming is a requisite for all your new hires.

5  Your grade school child is your tech support at home

4. You believe Computer Associates the leading an open source software provider

3. When someone mentions “Google glasses,” you type “glasses” into the search bar.

2. You are planning to implement OS2 on the desktop.

1. Big Data is a rapper.

My Tour de Silicon Valley: The 10 Most Popular Food Trucks

The history of mid-day dining in Silicon Valley has been through some very tough years, but has recently experienced a revolution.  Food trucks.

I will be on my home turf in Silicon Valley this month of August, to see how things have developed with the food trucks, and I will report back here.  I also begrudgingly support the San Jose Sharks….so I will see what I can uncover on the hockey front, but it is starting to feel like the Boston Red Sox curse.

Read more:  Slideshow: Top Ten Silicon Valley Food Trucks

Not long ago, Silicon Valley from North San Jose through Mountain View and all the way up to Palo Alto‘s University Avenue and California Avenue restaurants, there was very little in the way of quick and easy midday eating options.  Silicon Valley is a victim of industrial sprawl.  It takes a car to get anywhere and public transportation is still lacking. It was a cultural wasteland of warehouses and vacant lots.. The few restaurants on the El Camino strip were normally jammed, and you could depend on being stuck there for over an hour.  My favorite secret lunch  option was the food stall at Shoreline Park Lake in Mountain View, tucked away behind Shoreline Amphitheatre and the current Google headquarters.   The food trucks were the only other option, at that time were pretty gruesome old fashioned rigs with steamed burgers and soda pop.  Many of the old Silicon Valley food trucks were operated by Vietnamese families, but served Mexican burritos. Huh?  You waited to hear the truck arrive playing “La Cucaracha”  on its horn.

There just were not many options. The big Silicon Valley companies had awesome cafeterias, but unless you worked there you could forget it.  Google’s food service is legendary. The Sunnyvale area around Plug & Play is still a good example of  limited food options. There is one Greek place down the street from Plug & Play but not much else.

But the new food trucks have been an example of entrepreneurial initiative….designed to serve a severely underserved market, they now offer excellent cusine from around the World: Mexican (of course), Indian, Chinese noodles, Japanese miso and sushi, Vietnamese (Pho and all), Indian cuisine, Middle Eastern falafels and shawarmas, Greek,, you name it.. The key to all of this is that the Silicon Valley customer base is multicultural and demands the variety.

Reblogged from Silicon Valley Business Journal

Slideshow: Silicon Valley‘s Top 10 Most Popular Food Trucks

View Slideshow

Click through the photo gallery to see the top 10 food trucks in Silicon Valley, according to how they are ranked by Yelp.

Shana Lynch

Managing Editor–Silicon Valley Business Journal

 

Used to be food trucks were a way to feed the masses at a big job site — construction zones or farm fields. But now these meals on wheels are showing up everywhere in the Bay Area, enticing foodies with tasty treats (and sometimes surprising price tags).

The focus this week takes an in-depth look at food trucks, their growing trendiness, and how that’s impacting people just starting up in the business.

Find out from Porky’s SJ how the prices of trucks and truck designs have skyrocketed.

Meet Vince Guasch of the always popular Louisiana Territory and learn which is harder to run, a bricks-and-mortar or a rolling restaurant.

Then find out which corporate offices bring the best trucks to their yards (LinkedIn is a big fan of CurryUp Now).

Check out the top-rated food trucks in the region, according to Yelp, in this slideshow. Click on the food truck image to the right.

So what’s your favorite food truck?