[OoTheNigerian]

Speaking from experience, I think you skipped what I believe is the primary and most important skill.

The willingness to take risk on that your idea. Passion comes a close second. I believe there is a correlation between passion and the willingness to take the required risk to fulfill that passion.

==

As an aside, I can only imagine how awesome the event would have been. I attended the first Lean Camp with DHH. Startup events are one of the things I really miss in the UK.

[loceng]

Does anyone really do anything assuming the idea will fail though? Unless of course it's an experiment where the outcome doesn't matter - taken as a form of education.

It takes persistance foremost. For myself, I knew there were risks though I would continue to find ways to reduce risk - whether it was problem solving and planning, figuring out what I needed to do next to reduce the risk. This required something at a lower base level than willing to take on risk.

So what's more base than risk? Being able to manage yourself during a challenge, learning your own limits, what you are capable of - which takes self-awareness. The more I've learned myself over the years, my limits, the better I've become at self-regulating, and the better I know what I need to succeed. Any money I've spent so far I've considered an educational expense.

Life's all about learning, and hopefully being able to find enjoyment and being able to help others hopefully find enjoyment, too.

[swombat]

I agree that those are important... but they're not skills!

Skills are things you do with varying levels of competence, not things you are. "Willingness to take risk" is not a skill. "Passion" is also not a skill! "Risk mitigation" would be a skill, but I think it's not as core as the 12 I listed.

[loceng]

I disagree. You have to learn how to not be adverse to risk - it is something, a skill, you can learn. It is personal development, which could be argued is a lower base level skill. It's confidence related as well, and having confidence will help you be able to learn the 12 skills you listed.

[OoTheNigerian]

By the definition, you are right.

However, I looked at the list as intangible things you would require to do a startup. You wrote: "Being at least baseline-competent in all the skills on this list will markedly decrease the chances that you screw up your first business in a really obvious and easy to avoid way."

'Emotional skills' are too important not to be mentioned in anything about what you need to be successful in a startup.

We have seen how having the skill and not the emotional aspect can pan out [1]

[1] http://steveblank.com/2011/11/30/youll-be-dead-soon-carpe-di...