What makes a successful entrepreneur tick? According to Amy Wilkinson, author and lecturer at Stanford University, there are key commonalities among the successful entrepreneurs she studied for her book The Creator’s Code: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs.

While at IBM InterConnect 2016, in Las Vegas, NV, John Furrier and Dave Vellante, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, spoke with Wilkinson about her findings of success in today’s economy.

A country of entrepreneurs

“It’s a trend in the country, there’s no doubt; the data actually shows that if we want to start jobs in the economy, you have to start companies that will go to scale. So, all the net new jobs are with companies that are less than five years old. We’re seeing the proliferation of entrepreneurship and creators are everywhere.

“The Creators Code it’s based on 200 interviews with founders of companies, creators of new ideas that have scaled businesses in over a hundred million in annual revenue between five and 10 years. Founders of companies like LinkedIn, Airbnb, Tesla, SpaceX, Dropbox, PayPal, a number of Silicon Valley companies, but also looking across, so Chipotle, Chibonni, Under Armor, a sports brand,  Spanks, as a women’s undergarment company, and Jet Blue as an airline. I went out and talked to all these different founders to figure out the leadership skills they had in common.”

Click here to listen to Wilkinson outline the six essential skills.

Cracking the code

“There are six essential skills.

“Skill one is called find a gap. It’s about how do you spot a gap or opportunity that other people don’t see.

“Skill two is drive for daylight. How do you manage speed like a race car driver so you look for the lights on the horizon. It’s forward focus.

“Skill three is called fly the OODA loop. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide and act. So it’s a fast decision framework.

“Skill four is called fail wisely. So this is about being smart and learning and learning through setbacks and testing ideas.

“Skill five is called network minds. How do you bring brainpower to you? How do you harness cognitive diversity and get people together to help build on ideas to solve problems.

“Skill six is called gift small goods. The idea is a small good would be a small favor or small kindness. A way to help a colleague, generously gifting forward … In fact, now if you’re collaborative and helpful to your colleagues, your reputation is transparent.

“So I think the skill set, the six skills are learnable, teachable, accessible; it doesn’t require a credential or degree.”

Listen in as Wilkinson delves into these skills and why they are important.

Grabbing attention from big business

“Here’s one thing that I think is interesting about the research process behind this book: where it’s grabbing some attention, and that is in the corporate space. So the data set here (in The Creator’s Code) is the founders of new companies. But there’s a huge appetite that I’m finding somewhat surprising … how do you create inside a large structure? Is it the same skill set? And I think it is the same six skills, but you can create and scale inside … of the really big companies globally.”

Watch the video below for full coverage of theCUBE’s interview with Amy Wilkinson.

Photo by SiliconANGLE