Successful entrepreneurs are distinguished by their personality traits and are usually described as hardworking, risk-takers, multi-taskers, customer focused, team builders, planners and so on. Most entrepreneurs only have some of these characteristics but fill in the gaps with the team they put together. The one quality they always seem to possess is resilience.

A business idea must satisfy customer needs- Michelle Gialanzè

If you are thinking of setting up your own business, be wary of your own characteristics and of the several breaking points that you will face.

The market is an unforgiving arbitrator. I was given a golden piece of advice years ago: a business idea must satisfy customer needs.

So many products fail to satisfy the market for various reasons, including poor market and product research, allocating too little of the budget to marketing, lack of market focus, and complex differentiators requiring considerable consumer education.

Sometimes the sales team does not believe in the product and is not committed to selling it. Distribution can take longer than expected, sales channels are not educated about the product, unsupported product claims – the list goes on.

Entrepreneurs should not be afraid of failure. Every entrepreneur, even the most admired and successful, faces breaking points. Resilience leads entrepreneurs to learn from the experience and move on.

The perennial question is whether entrepreneurs are born or nurtured. Many people want to be entrepreneurs and that talent can be nurtured.

There are practical programmes available locally that take participants through the complete business stages from understanding funding to launching the business.

Dr Gialanzè is chief executive of International Vocational College Malta.