Roughly three out of every four startup companies fail, according to a Wall Street Journal article. The article adds that this statistic is accurate when failure is defined by not returning initial investment, or “capital,” to investors. If we define failure as the extreme, as in going bankrupt and liquidating assets, the number shrinks to well under half. Entrepreneurship still remains a gamble.

What, then, makes a successful startup? The University of Chicago’s Professor Craig Wortmann told a National Student Leadership Conference group at a recent lecture that early on, it is largely about the entrepreneur. There are a generally known “Four P’s of Marketing:” product, promotion, place, and price. Professor Wortmann believes they do not work for an entrepreneur because the product is not ready yet, promotion is too expensive, the place is nowhere, and the price is not yet determined.

The business idea is important, but so is the entrepreneur him or herself. I spoke with three entrepreneurs about entrepreneurship: Jay Goltz, who owns five home decor businesses in Chicago; Jack Sichterman, who owns an advertising firm and a beer company; and Bill Telepan, who owns two restaurants in New York City.

Jay Goltz, Founder of five “Home Decor” businesses

Jay Goltz is a five-time entrepreneur. In 1978, Goltz started Artist’s Frame Service immediately after graduating from college with a degree in accounting. He had previous experience working in the framing business, and started his own business with money saved from working.

Goltz found that the picture framing business was “laid back,” and not “customer service driven;” turnaround time for a framed picture was a month and some services never notified customers when the job was complete. Goltz knew that he could do it better. But that was not his primary inspiration for starting Artist’s Frame Service. Goltz, who decided late in college that he did not enjoy accounting enough to go into it after graduation, was inspired by a desire to make a living. Artist’s Frame Service was a way he could do that while enjoying what he was doing.

In 1978, Goltz explained, entrepreneurship was not common. The word “entrepreneur” was not even used at the time. Goltz equated saying one was going into business for him/herself to saying one was going to the moon; to start a business was to “waste your degree.” The irony of the situation, as Goltz explained, is that many of his peers did the conventional thing. “The smart kids” graduated with their accounting degrees and went to work for big firms like Arthur Andersen, which went bankrupt. Goltz, who made the radical decision to start his own business, now owns multi-million dollar companies. Sometimes the conventional route is not the best route.

Many successful entrepreneurs decide to grow their businesses. If you open a bakery, or a hardware store, or anything really, and are successful, you are likely to want to open more locations. Jay Goltz decided to expand his business “horizontally instead of vertically.” When his picture frame store was so successful, he did not open more. He realized he was not in the picture frame business; he was in the larger, home decor business, which encompasses the picture frame business. Goltz, who considers himself a “business artist” did not want to do the same thing he already did; he wanted something new.

He opened four more businesses: a more general home decor business, an art gallery/consulting firm, a wholesale frame business, and an online frame business, according to his website.

Goltz says that entrepreneurship has gone from “one ludicrous extreme to the other.” When Goltz started his business, nobody started businesses. People thought he was crazy and did not support him at all. Today, so many people start businesses and seventy-five percent of them fail, Goltz said. Goltz explained that many (not necessarily successful) entrepreneurs today lack the know-how or the necessary tools.

Business, he said, requires skills in marketing, finance, and the field in which you are going into business. Many entrepreneurs are, he said, “great at one, not bad at a second, and don’t know anything about the third.” In theory, he said that partnerships could remedy that situation, but they often do not because people choose a partner who is a friend they trust, and not necessarily someone whose skills are complementary to one’s own.

Goltz’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurship is “not a job, it is an adventure.” Entrepreneurs need the ability to take on risk, self confidence, and the ability to “figure out how to figure stuff out.” Finally, the supposed aphorism that if you “follow your passion the money will follow,” is false. Goltz says that business is half passion and half skill and figuring out the math.

Jack Sichterman, Founder of Great Big Circle and Einstök Beer

Jack Sichterman is a two-time entrepreneur who currently runs two companies in vastly different stages of their lives. Sichterman studied advertising and communications in college, worked for two different advertising agencies after graduating, and then ended up at Harley Davidson. Sichterman described Harley Davidson as the “coolest place to work” when he was there in the early 1990s. He was inspired by the founders of Harley Davidson to be an entrepreneur himself. They had created something new from nothing, and Sichterman wanted to do that, too.

In 1995, Jack Sichterman launched Great Big Circle, a firm that helps companies with “brand strategy, design and advertising creative.” Sichterman described what he was doing as “going out there to risk it.” He was leaving a job with a regular paycheck because he wanted something more--but this something more would take a lot of devotion.

Sichterman assumed less risk than many entrepreneurs do when starting Great Big Circle for two reasons. First, he was starting a service business, which requires considerably less capital than a product does. Second, Sichterman left Harley Davidson knowing that he would have them as a client when he went off on his own. He knew where his first dollar would come from, and it would have been “foolish to start without” that.

About four years ago, Sichterman began working on his second venture, keeping the first alive, albeit smaller than it was. At Great Big Circle, Sichterman spent his time selling other people’s products; now it was time to create and sell his own: beer. Einstök Beer is a “high-end craft” operation and offers four different ales, according to einstokbeer.com.

Einstök Beer required a lot more capital to start than Great Big Circle did, but Sichterman avoided “venture capital”, which is money from a company hoping to get more back than it put in, and stuck to “angel” investors: people he knows personally and chose to invest in Einstök Beer because they believe in him. Sichterman describes his investors as “sophisticated angel investors,” as most of them work in banking or finance and know about business, which he finds helpful.

For many startups, capital and investors are essential, but they can also be a burden. An entrepreneur must report to investors, and is somewhat limited by what investors want. They’re a “necessary pain in the butt,” said Sichterman.

Sichterman has yet to bring home profit from Einstök Beer, but he expects to by the end of this year. Though success takes time, Sichterman has his “eyes on the prize” and looks forward to the future success of Einstök Beer.

Sichterman’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to make everything one does, even before they actually begin planning a business, part of working towards an “ultimate goal.”

Bill Telepan, Chef and founder of two restaurants.

Bill Telepan recently became a two-time entrepreneur when he opened his second restaurant, Telepan Local. Mr. Telepan opened his first restaurant, Telepan, in 2005, after working in the culinary industry for years. He grew up eating “hearty meals” with his family, according to billtelepan.com. Telepan graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and then worked at a Three Michelin Star restaurant in France, where he “honed his culinary skills, and learned the importance of retaining the integrity of fresh ingredients,” according to billtelepan.com. Telepan later worked in a number of New York City restaurant kitchens, including JUdson Grill, where he was executive chef, and published a cookbook, according to his website.

Telepan decided to open his own restaurant out of a desire for “complete creative control over the whole process,” he said. He added that this includes everything from the “design of the restaurant” and “the look of the wait staff” to everything that came out of the kitchen or from behind the bar. Mr. Telepan opened his second restaurant, Telepan Local, very recently. His process for opening both restaurants was similar: develop a business plan, find and design a space, and find investors. The process differed in the concepts of the restaurants. Telepan Restaurant features “seasonal, fresh and local ingredients,” while Telepan Local “features casual, tapas-style American fare from an open kitchen,” according to billtelepan.com.

Based on Bill Telepan’s career and success, an aspiring entrepreneur could conclude that gaining a lot of experience and doing something one enjoys can make their ventures more successful.

From the interviews with these three very successful entrepreneurs, one can conclude that aspiring entrepreneurs need to devote their life to “the adventure,” as Goltz put it. Gain experience, like what you’re doing, and make everything into a learning experience.