Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck: What It Takes to Be an Entrepreneur and Build a Great Business - Hardcover

by Anthony K. Tjan (Author), Richard J. Harrington (Author), Tsun-Yan Hsieh (Author)

What's your entrepreneurial profile?

Do you have what it takes to build a great business?

In this book, three prominent business leaders and entrepreneurs--now venture capitalists and CEO advisers--share the qualities that surface again and again in those who successfully achieve their goals. The common traits? Heart, smarts, guts, and luck.

After interviewing and researching hundreds of business-builders across the globe, the authors found that every one of them--from young founder to seasoned CEO--holds a combination of these four attributes. Indeed each of us tends to be biased toward one of these traits in our decision-making, and figuring out which trait drives you will lead to greater self-awareness and likelihood of success in starting and growing a business.

So are you:
- Heart-dominant, like renowned chef Alice Waters or Starbucks's Howard Schultz?
- Smarts-dominant, like Jeff Bezos of Amazon or legendary investor Warren Buffett?
- Guts-dominant, like Nelson Mandela or Virgin's Richard Branson?
- Or are you most defined by the luck trait, like Tony Hsieh of Zappos (and a surprisingly high proportion of other successful entrepreneurs)?

Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck includes the first Entrepreneurial Aptitude Test (E.A.T), a simple tool to help determine your specific profile.

Though no single archetype for entrepreneurial success exists, this book will help you understand which traits to "dial up" or "dial down" to realize your full potential, and when these traits are most and least helpful (or even detrimental) during critical points of a company lifecycle. Not only will you know how to build a better business faster, you'll also take your natural leadership style to the next level.

Author Biography

Anthony K. Tjan is Managing Partner of the venture capital firm Cue Ball and was the founder of the pioneering Internet advisory group, ZEFER, as well as former Senior Partner and Vice Chairman of Parthenon Group. Richard J. Harrington is Chairman of Cue Ball. Dick began his career as a small business owner; as CEO of Thomson Corporation, he transformed the diversified holding company into Thomson Reuters, the largest information services company in the world. Tsun-yan Hsieh is a widely respected business guru who, over his 30-year career as a Senior Director of McKinsey and Chairman of LinHart Group, has become a trusted counselor to founders, CEOs, and boards throughout the Americas and Asia.