Who is an ‘A’ student anyway? They’re the best in their field. They know a lot about one topic. They are also not a representative of the entrepreneurial world as a whole. While they know a plenty, they do not know enough about everything. Business Insider takes a closer look at the comparison between grade A specialization, and grade B success.
B-students don’t know everything about anything and are excellent at nothing. B-students do, however, know something about a lot of things, and they can complete almost any task with some modicum of competence. People often ask me: “As an entrepreneur, what exactly do you do?” My answer: “I do nothing. But I do it very well.” Entrepreneurs are B-students. There is no one thing they do well. But there are many things they do well enough.
A-students, on the other hand, know a lot about one thing, whether it is technology or marketing or sales or finance. And they do this one thing extremely well. If they don’t do it well, it bothers them. A-students want to do things perfectly all the time. This is a very bad trait for an entrepreneur, but a very good trait for a manager. More on this later.
The biggest downside of the entrepreneur’s penchant to understand everything about nothing and a little bit about a lot of things is that they get bored quickly with any one task. The ability to focus and be patient is typically associated not with entrepreneurs but with managers. Entrepreneurs want results immediately, while managers are happy to wait, confident that if they execute perfectly over time the results will eventually follow.
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