Discipline, methodology are the perfect mix for successful entrepreneurs

Months before Bill Aulet's book Disciplined Entrepreneurship was published in Chinese, pirated copies were already downloadable online, much to the dismay of his publishers. But Aulet himself saw the cup half full. As managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, at the MIT Sloan School of Management, he saw the advanced popularity of his book as a sign of the rise of entrepreneurship in China.

While popular notion assumes entrepreneurship to be inherently chaotic and driven by ideas, Bill Aulet emphasises discipline and methodology. For Aulet and his students at MIT, entrepreneurship is a skill set. His book Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup is published in simplified Chinese this month [September 2014]. The traditional Chinese edition was released in June.

“Being a successful entrepreneur is a profession and a discipline, no longer black art,” Aulet says. “Entrepreneurship can and must be taught. It is just not being taught very well.”

Using examples from MIT students who have taken his course and started their businesses, Aulet details the journey of entrepreneurship and highlights common pitfalls. Many books focus on some of the steps of the entrepreneurial journey, he says, but there is no single resource that pulls everything together.

In his book, he advises entrepreneurs to find a specific market that their start-ups could dominate. Not only do entrepreneurs need to know their customers and define their value proposition; they also need a clear customer acquisition strategy – in other words, start-ups need to be prepared to convince their customers to use their product.

Aulet speaks from experience. He is a serial entrepreneur, having run two MIT spinouts as president and CEO. Previously he had spent 11 years at IBM, in marketing, finance, sales, and technical roles, as well as management and operations. Since joining MIT as senior lecturer, he has taught some of the most popular classes in entrepreneurship. On a daily basis, he advises MIT students on tackling various problems in their plans for building start-ups.