Five Things to Become an Entrepreneur

DOSARAF's founder shares five qualities — the five Ds — that mark the difference between an idea that stays an idea and one that becomes a sustainable, well-managed enterprise.

Dream: every business starts as a picture of something that doesn't exist yet. Entrepreneurs give themselves permission to hold that picture seriously before anyone else believes in it.

Desire: a dream needs enough pull behind it to survive the early setbacks that arrive before any business finds its footing.

Decision: at some point the dream has to be converted into a specific, committed choice to act — not just an intention held indefinitely.

Determination: the follow-through that carries a business past its first failures, cash-flow scares and slow months.

Discipline: the daily habits and structure that turn determination into a business that actually runs — the least glamorous of the five, and the one that separates those who sustain a business from those who simply start one.