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February 9, 2025

Black Entrepreneur History

#1 Source for Black Entrepreneur History

What Makes an Entrepreneur a Hustler & What Makes Them Succeed?

The term hustler has been thrown around and used in various ways for various things, but what exactly is a hustler when it comes to entrepreneurship, and are all entrepreneurs hustlers?

If one looks up the definition of the word hustle, it formally states that it could me busy movement or activity and to obtain by forceful action or persuasion in an unceremonious way. There’s also a definition that could mean fraud or swindle which is an informal term. Let’s focus on the formal definitions of busy movement and unceremonious persuasion.

Both being very active and great at persuasion are the main qualities of a hustlers that secure success in the future of their business because:

  • Their Activity Level is High
    • An entrepreneur who is a considered a hustler will go above and beyond to attain his or her goals when it comes to business relationships, marketing, strategizing and more. Their whole goal for their business goes beyond solely starting it and remaining stagnant, awaiting for people to find him. Instead, the hustling entrepreneur seeks out clients, methods and various networking opportunities in order to actively reach for his success to him, not wait on it to come.
  • They Utilize Unconventional and Nontraditional Ways to Persuade Potential Clients
    • Hustling Entrepreneurs use what could be considered a by-any-legal-means necessary to promote and succeed. These unconventional ways could mean inserting where they can their services, persuading people anywhere at any time to participate or engage with their product and be willing to speak to a non-targeted audience to create an audience for their start-up.

Knowing this, not all entrepreneurs are hustlers because these types of entrepreneurs go against the grain and create their own rules for marketing and winning. They go for what works for them and their own personalities, what they are good at, which can’t necessarily be taught.

What makes many hustling entrepreneurs succeed is because of their high energy, confidence and never taking no as an answer, but as a challenge. Hustling entrepreneurs create their own opportunities and audiences from the ground up. This is the reason they eventually succeed because giving up isn’t a part of their thought process, from the time of waking up in the morning to the time they go to bed at night. Hustling entrepreneurs have tunnel-vision focus and that focus is to succeed.

An example of a hustling entrepreneur of black history’s past was an African American woman named Annie M. T. Malone who utilized door to door sales, giveaways and social objectives to promote her brand new hair products which made her the actual first African American female self-made millionaire.

Read her story here.