The only founders who do it successfully share one trait in common: the resilience to navigate a rocky path filled with unforeseen twists and turns. That's a key lesson that Catalina Daniels and James Sherman took from researching for their new book, "Smart Startups: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know — Advice from 18 Harvard Business School Founders." "Having resilience is absolutely essential [for] the emotional makeup of a person in terms of becoming an entrepreneur," Sherman tells CNBC Make It. "If they don't have that type of resilience, they need to learn how to build it up." In fact, every founder the authors spoke to agreed that resilience was the biggest key to their success, even more than prior experience or a winning business idea.

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Persons: That's, Catalina Daniels, James Sherman, Daniels, Sherman, Harvard alums, Josh Hix, Nick Taranto, Kevin O'Leary, — Anna Auerbach, Auerbach, …, they're, Hix, Warren Buffett Organizations: Smart, Harvard Business School, Harvard, Groupe, CNBC, Werk, American Psychological Association