I mean... how does history not already tell you this? Nearly every person we remember as a historical figure was able to "sell" something to get there. The typical exception to this is the person who did something interesting, but someone else sold it for them after they died.
In the eyes of their lifetimes and most of history, Edison won the Tesla v Edison battle nearly 100%. Edison was a vastly better salesperson.
If you ask the average person who Nikola Tesla was today, they'd probably say something about the car company. Elon Musk sells the name Tesla better than Tesla himself ever did.
If your idea of success is obtaining money or changing hearts and minds, you better learn how to sell (or I guess you could devise a spectacularly dangerous weapon).
I suppose the question at the root of it is: can you determine someone's "entrepreneurialness" completely by looking at their total profit (or maybe total revenue)? Or is there more to it than that?
For instance, Tesla's ideas were used extensively by others to make money. Is the fact that he personally didn't capture that revenue with is own account take away from his "entrepreneurialness" score?
In the eyes of their lifetimes and most of history, Edison won the Tesla v Edison battle nearly 100%. Edison was a vastly better salesperson.
If you ask the average person who Nikola Tesla was today, they'd probably say something about the car company. Elon Musk sells the name Tesla better than Tesla himself ever did.
If your idea of success is obtaining money or changing hearts and minds, you better learn how to sell (or I guess you could devise a spectacularly dangerous weapon).