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

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.