If you ask me what one skill I would like, I would call it common sense. But the discipline that an education gives you is very great. While Perlis has the advantage of being established, he notes there is another side. You can be established and be outmoded, losing business to more aggressive and larger companies. A larger corporation will do a market study and take a much more formal approach.
Entrepreneurs tend to turn on a dime.
When we look at something, if we like it, we try it. But a friend of mine who came along in the same era has about 30 and is considered the most successful in the business. At one time they had approximately 600 employees. The shopping center operation was sold several years ago to a New York stock-exchange firm. Now the Perlis company has approximately 270 employees.