When our CEO, Andrey Zhulin, told me that “At Insolar, everyone is an engineer”, I was a little surprised. After all, while there are 50 world-class engineers in our team, I work here, and I’m not an engineer … or am I? So, I asked him what he meant. Here’s what he said: “All of us, no matter what our chosen role, build the future and our company.” This is true, and the more I talked with our founders, the more interesting it got. What it comes down to is the Spirit of Entrepreneurship: You take responsibility to build your own life. In this case, Insolar is about creating blockchain technology that is optimally suited to serve enterprise and make people’s lives easier.

After hearing such words from our CEO, I decided to hold a small discussion panel with the company’s founders to learn more about their motivations in creating Insolar. My first question was about what their dreams were as children. Here’s what Peter said:

Peter Fedchenkov: “As a kid, I’ve always wanted to have freedom in what I do, be creative and not be bound by someone else’s vision (like what we all experience at school), stick to my own timetable, work with people I like, spend time thinking about cool stuff with my friends. I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do then, but I knew I wanted to do something ‘useful’, something that brings tangible people together and that people would love. Back then I also didn’t know that what I just described is the essence of entrepreneurship, or at least how I’ve always seen it… So, I guess one can say that I’ve always been dreaming about becoming an entrepreneur. And for the past 5 years, that’s what I’ve been doing, and I would not trade my professional life for anything else in this world.”

Wow! This really got me thinking. Dmitry’s answer was equally inspirational — and while different, there’s a common denominator here …

Dmitry Zhulin: “I always wanted to make discoveries. Although I didn’t know which profession I’d choose right away, I enjoyed physics and geography. Physics is about understanding the essence of things. Geography is about striving to make new discoveries. Pretty soon after I started school, I decided that I want to create something, and then I realized — one day I have to start my own company.”

Ok, I’m sold. So what I want to know now is, What personal characteristics does a successful entrepreneur have to embody, and why?

Peter: “I once sat at the same dinner table with Mickey (Hiroshi) Mikitani, the Chairman and CEO of Rakuten, one of Japan’s most prominent entrepreneurs. I asked him what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. He said two words: ‘Have patience!’. Only five years later, I can now appreciate how right he is. But patience of course is not enough. Having grit, stamina, and determination is critical. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, if you don’t enjoy hard work and a challenge — it’s better to find an office job. In his recent book ‘Principles’, Ray Dalio, the preeminent hedge fund manager and founder of Bridgewater Associates, introduced the concept of ‘struggling well’. I would agree — as an entrepreneur, you have to find your own way of ‘struggling well’ and enjoying it.”

Evidently, entrepreneurship is not just about idealism — it’s a lot of hard work. You really have to take responsibility and get in charge. But what a reward it is — you can have direct and decisive impact and make your vision a reality! Andrey lays out some concrete recommendations below.

Andrey’s recipe for professional and personal success:

Demonstrate grit

“Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Be proactive

You must have a natural need to wield influence on the world around you, so don’t spend your time just reacting to external events and circumstances. Take charge and assume responsibility for your life.

Put first things first

Focus on what’s important, meaning the things that bring you closer to your vision of the future. Don’t get distracted by urgent but unimportant tasks.

Think win-win

When negotiating with others, don’t try to get the biggest slice of the cake, but rather find a division that is acceptable to all parties. You will still get your fair share, and build strong, positive relationships in the process.

Begin with an end goal in mind

Don’t spend your life working aimlessly, tackling whatever job is at hand. Have a vision for the future and align your actions accordingly to make it into a reality.

In short: Believe in yourself, take the risk, and find the right people to work with!”

Dmitry: “I couldn’t agree more. You need to understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and use your strengths as much as possible. For your business, choose a topic that really inspires and excites you. Not least: build the best team you possibly can. This is the most important thing of all — not even the business idea, but your team.”

This is a lot of valuable advice. I still wanted to hear what Peter would tell aspiring entrepreneurs…

Peter: “I am always amazed by young people who start their business right after college or even drop out. But the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are incredibly rare. Most successful entrepreneurs have a few years, if not a decade of professional experience, before they venture on their own. My experience as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs has helped me tremendously to become more mature, understand how business works, analyze different business models, take finance and legal seriously — and I think my co-founders would agree that their work experience has contributed tremendously too.

So my advice would be to really get your hands dirty and work at a company that will teach you some solid practices about how business should be done — be it marketing, finance, consulting, engineering or whatever else — the important thing is working at an organization that upholds the highest standards in whatever they do. First you have to learn from others, then you can start your own business, and later you can teach others how to do business. Don’t skip any of these steps!”

At this point, I’m thinking, one of the key characteristics of a successful entrepreneur is bravery. So I ask: what’s the bravest thing you ever did?

Dmitry: “In fact the bravest thing is founding Insolar in face of the extreme difficulties which we had in the beginning, when we had neither a team nor any financing.”

Andrey adds that, “Insolar is born from a very brave idea to build a totally new blockchain platform for business. Even braver is that we’re talking to some of the largest companies around the world (F500).”

Peter adds that bravery comes back to grit: “It’s not just about founding Insolar — it’s more about everyday confidence in our vision and being able to convince people around the world to buy in and follow — and keeping your inspiration and power, despite all the hard work, occasional setbacks, or other hurdles on the way. We are on the cutting edge of both technological and business model innovation, so yes, I guess one needs to be brave and reckless enough to power through. So, I’d say this bravest thing is a work in progress…”

So the main conclusion from our discussion is that you need to have a dream. If you listen inwardly without self-censorship, you’ll see that you do. Whatever dream you have, you’re going to need to be brave to make it come true. And besides the first step — even if it’s a huge leap into the unknown — you’re not done yet, you’re only truly brave if you stick to your goals, long-term, no matter what comes your way. You need bravery every day. Well, it’s a good thing that I’m stubborn!

Ok, so what I want to know now is, why blockchain tech? How can it improve the world?

Peter: “We live in a very modern world, where technology is making the impossible possible everyday — from the Moon landing to virtual reality to a new generation of drugs — we are advancing the limits of society. However, the world is still a very inefficient and overly complex place — there is so much ‘friction’ even in the most modern institutions and the most advanced parts of the world. We as consumers and citizens have to deal with it every day — if you have ever lost your luggage, rented a car, filed an insurance claim, or lost your passport — you know what I mean. This happens on the business side too — issuing letters of credit, conducting clinical trials, reconciling purchase orders with invoices and complying with government regulations are some of the most complex processes which — most people would agree — have to be reinvented. This is exactly why we are excited about blockchain — it can remove this friction and complexity from today’s world, and create value for businesses and consumers alike by making the world run smoother…”

Insolar’s vision is to make the world more transparent and connected. We create the best solutions for inter-organizational business processes through simple to use solutions powered by cutting-edge technology.

Andrey: “At Insolar, we’re all engineers, and we’re focused on solving the hardest problems we can find. You don’t have to be a computer scientist or have any particular degree to be an engineer. You just have to speak up when things aren’t right, evaluate ideas on their merits, and build things that fix what’s broken.”

Follow your dreams, found your company, build the future.