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To become a successful entrepreneur, it isn’t enough to simply develop a winning idea; to truly build a business from the ground up, entrepreneurs must cultivate a skill set that will see them through both the good times and the bad of a company’s development. Here are just three essential qualities that entrepreneurs must embody in order to truly see their vision through from start to finish, and why those qualities matter now more than ever.

  1. They Must Exhibit Resilience

As any successful entrepreneur will tell you, building a business from the ground up is much more of a marathon than it is a sprint. For aspiring entrepreneurs, the cultivation of an attitude geared towards long-term resilience in the face of challenges is therefore essential to success. Every company will experience its fair share of setbacks, it is true, but it is through the perseverance of company founders in the face of such setbacks that long-term gains will be achieved. For successful entrepreneurs, in other words, giving up in the face of adversity is simply not an option.

For example, few people realize that Steve Jobs was once fired from Apple Computers in 1985 due to a management style that rubbed Apple’s board of directors the wrong way. Rather than give up on his dream of revolutionizing the computer industry, however, Jobs went on to found NeXT, a company dedicated to bringing affordable computers to schools and colleges. Apple hired Jobs back as CEO in the 1990s, but the story would have had a very different arc if Jobs had simply given up on the computer industry after experiencing a period of discouragement and uncertainty.

  1. They Must Be Trustworthy

To be a great leader, people must be able to trust an entrepreneur’s decision-making process and their ability to follow through on big commitments. No leader is flawless in their judgment, of course, but it is imperative that entrepreneurs keep their word to their investors, staff, and customers wherever possible: Once the sense of trust in a leader is damaged, it is extremely difficult to repair it.

  1. They Must Cultivate Passion

Without a sense of passion for their vision, entrepreneurs will be unlikely to get their idea for business very far. Running a start-up company can involve 16-hour days and a non-stop barrage of unpredictable challenges; for people who don’t love what they’re doing, the non-stop pressure inherent to running a business can spell disaster. Indeed, industry mavericks like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs achieved huge levels of success in large part because they were passionate about the computer industry long before they honed their skills as tech CEOs. Without that passion, it is unlikely that most people would have ever heard of either entrepreneur.

For these reasons, developing a skill set that encompasses resilience, trustworthiness, and passion is an essential step towards creating a truly successful business. All companies experience stumbling blocks, but the true test of a leader’s mettle is whether they are able to make it through the difficult times with their confidence and reputation for honesty intact. That is business at its best!