What I learned from Richard Branson, Warren Buffet, and Tyler Perry

Today I had the opportunity to hear from some of the greatest entrepreneurs in the world, thanks to the Goldman Sachs #10KSB program. Here is a quick synopsis of the combined messages from Tyler Perry, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet, Sara Blakely, and many more.

The main takeaway for me was that there is no secret formula or silver bullet for entrepreneurial success. However, the following basic principles were consistent in each success story shared:

1. The customer experience is paramount. If you’re not delighting your customers, your business isn’t scalable. And, since I’m in advertising, I’ll add that all the advertising in the world can’t solve a customer experience problem.

2. Look for and recognize opportunity when it presents itself. Each of the speakers today talked about how they had been working incredibly hard, building their business slowly, when it happened. Each saw the opportunity to guarantee success for their businesses and they jumped. Who knows how many more stories there would be if more people had been looking for opportunities when the time came.

3. Be relentless. The late nights, hard work, scary moments, and other challenges all add up to success. Each entrepreneur I heard today had plenty of opportunities to give up. They didn’t, and it paid off in a big way.

4. At the beginning, learn and do everything within your business. Then, when it’s time to scale, be willing to replace yourself with amazing people who can do each job better than you.

5. Have courage. The courage, gusto, guts, or whatever less appropriate word you want to use that it took each of these entrepreneurs to do what they did is incredible. Being an entrepreneur isn’t for the faint of heart. The courage to try is a mandatory requirement to being successful.

It sounds simple when these billionaires say it. But, nonetheless, I’m inspired by their simple formula for success.