Blog sites are full of articles on ‘how to spot an entrepreneur at birth’ or ’10 things great entrepreneurs do’. You have the feeling if life is so obvious, then we could all be doing it.

The fact is that many of these comments are written ‘after the fact’. They often seem to be full of lines that are readily adjustable as the entrepreneurs keep moving the goalposts.

Take the example of Israel – a.k.a The Start Up Nation or Silicon Valley of the Middle East. Yossi Vardi has long been heralded as one of the local kings of high tech. By way of proof, he has a prime listing on Techcrunch.

According to a recent interview in Hebrew, Vardi has invested in over 80 companies. It is over 15 years since AOL bought his first ‘biggie’, ICQ for US$407 million. ICQ was one of the first of its kind for internet chat.

However, Vardi goes on to say that only 20 of the same 80 have resulted in a decent exit. In other words, while the man has made a very healthy fortune over the years, he has also bet on what turned out to be losers.

And, there is a third part to his story. Vardi has also missed opportunities. He openly admits to passing on a chance to invest in Waze, which is currently being targeted by Facebook for around a cool billion dollars.

Bottom line. It takes many factors to be a successful entrepreneur – skill, luck, uniqueness, right market at right time, management and leadership skills, etc. To do that several times over is exceedly rare.

Is there one characteristic that links the Vardis, Gates, Jobs of this world? Walter Isaacson referred to “an ability to focus”. I wonder if it just boils down to the old thing of some people have just ‘got it’ and you have to respect and understand that.