After ten years of backing startups and watching entrepreneurs rise and fall, Ben Lim has learned what separates the success stories from the broken dreams.
As founder and CEO of NEXEA, a venture capital firm with portfolio returns two to three times higher than typical VCs (Lim claims), his insights don’t just matter for founders — students charting their futures need to hear them too. Here’s his best advice for entrepreneurs and scholars alike.
The lucky ones are ready ones
Lim attributes much of his success to a combination of luck and being opportunistic. But here’s the catch: capturing opportunities requires you to be prepared. “You can predict issues before they occur,” he explains, crediting his MBA with helping NEXEA avoid major crashes during turbulent times. “It’s a bit like insurance for entrepreneurship.”
This preparation mindset applies equally to students. Whether you’re launching a startup or entering the job market, being ready when opportunity knocks makes all the difference between capitalizing on luck and watching it pass by.
The three traits you need to be entrepreneurial
After a decade in venture capital, Lim has developed a contrarian view on what makes VCs successful. “First, you have to be an entrepreneur to spot an entrepreneur,” he says. “A lot of VCs are not doing so well in returns partly because they’re not entrepreneurs in the first place.”
His firm’s outperformance stems from understanding what he calls “certain truths and fundamentals in entrepreneurship.” While many VCs rely on conventional metrics, Lim looks deeper. “If you can figure out those rules of the game, you’ll figure out how to spot them and support them. Then the returns will come.”
The formula he’s landed on? Three core qualities: grit, drive, and problem-solving skills. The challenge, he admits, is that no one knows how to spot these traits reliably. Even his analysts take two to three years to develop the instinct.
The encouraging news for students is that two of these three qualities can be developed. “Grit can be practiced — just fall off the bike,” Lim says. Drive, meanwhile, “can be replaced with discipline. That’s one way to do it.”
Problem-solving is trickier. “It’s a muscle,” Lim acknowledges, “but if you’re not born with it, it’s harder to build.”
This leads to an uncomfortable truth students must face: entrepreneurial success is rare. “What never changes is how rare they are — it’s a function of population. It’s always hard to find that 0.1%. It’s kind of the same as sports and Hollywood. There’s a few superstars and honestly thousands of broken dreams.”
The evolving role of degrees
So where does education fit in? Lim believes that over time, degrees matter less — but they still matter. He views MBAs and similar programs as “maps and compasses” for students, though he acknowledges many alternatives exist today, including LLM-based AI.
“But there’s a caveat — that’s if you know how to use it and ask the right questions,” he cautions.
His take on formal education is pragmatic. Going for an MBA is building up your brain to do what AI does. The things you learn about will be stored in your memory somewhere. And one day, when you need it, you can do the right prompt in your brain, and get the answer you need.
While many now want to skip tertiary education and jump straight into work, Lim remains skeptical. Being entirely self-made is so rare nowadays that most people still benefit from structured curricula. Plus, degrees serve as insurance — not just for you, but for employers too.
NEXEA was founded in 2015 with the mission to build a hybrid venture fund and accelerator that prioritises founders’ success. Source: Ben Lim
Finding your 0.1%
The bitter pill to swallow is that you might not be the 0.1% that makes it big. But that’s not necessarily bad news. Just because you’re not the top 0.1% at something doesn’t mean you can’t be that in other fields.
Or maybe — just maybe — you’ll ignore this advice and prove people like Lim wrong. After all, every successful entrepreneur had someone telling them the odds were against them.
The key is knowing which game you’re playing and preparing yourself accordingly. Whether that’s through formal education, disciplined self-teaching, or a combination of both, being ready when your moment comes is what transforms luck into success.
