http://images.smh.com.au/2011/11/03/2749840/1_Max-Levchin-V2-AL-WIDE-420x0.jpg
The Trait: Focus
The Entrepreneur: Max Levchin
The Company: PayPal
Even prosperous businesses can be dragged under by failure to address their biggest problems head-on. When Max Levchin (above right) founded PayPal, it would have been very easy for him to neglect the rampant fraud that threatened to suffocate the company's profit margins, turning his attention instead to how great it was that
PayPal was growing at a phenomenal rate. Instead, Levchin utilized the timeless entrepreneurial characteristic of focus, making security priority number one at the fledgling online payment service.
Within a couple of years, according to Jessica Livingston's excellent book Founders at Work, fraud was largely reigned in at PayPal and the company was acquired by ebay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
The lesson here is to confront (rather than rationalize away) your company's biggest problems, no matter how well the rest of the business may be doing.
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