Anytime that you make a generalization about any group of people, you are destined to be off base. Generalizations by definition never cover the individualism that makes all humans so special.

But at the same time, generalizations do help identify trends and garner understanding about people's thoughts.

One of the generalizations we often discuss at Wasabi Ventures is that entrepreneurs love sports, with many of them being ex-athletes. As a matter of fact, some of our most successful founders were ex-athletes who played their sports at the highest of levels. We have even added sports history of the founders as a measurement of our due diligence when analyzing a new, prospective investment.

The discussion caused us to ask the question, "Why are athletes drawn to the entrepreneurial mindset?"

Our observations:

-- Sports have clear winners and losers. Entrepreneurs like to know a score and the feel of victory. The other piece of this is that winning and losing is a major part of the start-up life. Every entrepreneur fails, and fails often. Most athletes also fail often (e.g. Hall of Fame baseball players only get a hit on average 3 out of 10 times at bat) and have become well-adapted on how to deal with that failure.
Just as important is that they know how to win. In sports, winning produces greater pressures and the setting of the bar at progressively higher levels.

Winning in the start-up world brings on new challenges, such as hiring and managing new employees and handling growing customer support needs.

-- Athletics are a form of creativity. Entrepreneurial-thinking people love to create things and solve problems with their creations. Looking at a situation and seeing an opportunity that others don't recognize, and then crafting a creative response, is a secret to success in both sports and building a company.

-- Great athletes like to push themselves. By definition, an entrepreneur is someone who believes they can do things better than those things are currently being done. Some people call it arrogance, but most of the time it is just a supreme confidence in his or her abilities. Great athletes and entrepreneurs need this self-belief.

-- Athletes have an appetite for taking risks. Although we don't believe that most successful entrepreneurs are just crazy risk-takers, we do believe they have a certain appetite for taking chances. Athletes have to make split-second decisions that will change the course of a competition. Entrepreneurs make decisions ever day that will impact every aspect of their company's existence.

Once again, generalizations are never foolproof. But being able to recognize characteristics of successful people allows you to understand what may cause this success. It also may allow you to recognize the opportunities that arise in your own personal traits and experiences.

If you are an athlete who has been dreaming of starting your own company, maybe the fact that your prior sports training is a perfect experience will inspire you to get off of the sidelines and into the arena.

I look forward to responding to your questions or comments on this topic.

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Tom Kuegler is the co-founder and general partner of Wasabi Ventures, a venture capital, incubator, and consulting firm that specializes in building and advising early-stage technology companies. In the last 10 years, Wasabi Ventures has built, financed, and advised some wildly successful ventures such as PBworks, UStream and Etherpad.

Kuegler is the author of all three editions of the acclaimed book, "Web Advertising and Marketing." He has authored dozens of articles about the Internet and been published in leading publications such as inc.com and ClickZ.

Kuegler lectures at colleges, seminars, companies and conferences about the corporate benefits of utilizing interactive technologies.

He currently sits on the Board of Sponsors of Sellinger School of Business at Loyola University in Maryland, and has presented at hundreds of events on a wide array of topics about economics, entrepreneurialism, technology, and management.

For more information, visit www.wasabiventures.com.