When people study successful entrepreneurs—those who have
started two of more companies—that always do the same thing.
They look at their behavior. And that’s a problem. If you only
examine what Howard Schultz or Michael Dell do, you would
conclude—correctly—that their behavior is idiosyncratic, No two
entrepreneurs do things exactly the same way. And so you would
conclude that every single entrepreneur is unique, and so there
is little to be learned from studying them; you would have to be
Howard Schultz to start Starbucks and Michael Dell to start
Dell. Enter our friend Saras D. Sarasvathy, professor of
business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden
School of Business. Early in her work, she made a fascinating
discovery, one that ran counter to the conventional wisdom.
Saras studied serial entrepreneurs, people who have started two
or more companies successfully. But instead of looking at their
behavior of entrepreneurs—which is indeed unique—Saras focused
on how they think. And there she fo