[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...