Decoding the personalities behind startup success
Startup success isn't only about luck, strategy, innovation, execution. Founders' personalities play a key role in startup success, now backed by an insightful study I want to share with you.
Researchers explored the connection between founders' personalities and startup success in the nature.com study about “The impact of founder personalities on startup success”.
And in my opinion, the findings are pretty interesting, in some cases different from what I was considering as a fact / common knowledge.
So let me share the summary with you, hope you’ll find it interesting too.
First, the study employed machine learning to predict whether an individual was an entrepreneur or an employee based solely on personality traits, with 82.5% accuracy. Which is pretty fascinating.
Notable traits associated with successful entrepreneurs included Adventurousness, Modesty, and Activity Level.
From this analysis, six distinct founder types were identified, forming the FOALED model:
Fighters: Bold and resilient entrepreneurs, tackling challenges with spontaneity and a fearless approach.
Operators: Conscientious and agreeable leaders, ensuring the efficient operation of their startups.
Accomplishers: Organized, confident, and composed founders adept at managing and achieving startup goals.
Leaders: Adventurous, self-controlled, and assertive visionaries who thrive on strategic risk-taking.
Experts/Engineers: Imaginative and intellectually curious individuals, contributing technical expertise to shape the startup's trajectory.
Developers: Innovative founders blending technical skills and creativity to drive progress in startups.
Research indicates that personality traits endure into adulthood, showing stability despite major life events. Traits established in adolescence persist, with limited influence from external factors like divorce or unemployment. This suggests that founder personalities likely drive startup success rather than the opposite.
This was very surprising for me as I’ve learned big life events have greater impact on shaping our personalities.
The study also introduced a theory, emphasizing the impact of combined personality characteristics within founding teams on startup success. Firms with multiple founders were found to be over twice as likely to succeed, showing the importance of a diverse and complementary blend of personalities.
Successful teams scored higher on traits like Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness.
Specific trio-founder combinations were highlighted as more than twice as likely to succeed, including teams with a Leader and two Developers, an Operator and two Developers, and an Expert/Engineer, Leader, and Developer.
I always considered large co-founding teams inefficient and difficult to manage. I don’t know any startup that had 5+ co-founders and succeeded - they usually broke up. Interesting this study is showing the opposite.
Anyway, hope this was interesting! A short break from founder stories, but don’t worry & look forward to the next one in a week :).
If you’re a founder, what traits are the strongest for you & your co-founding team? Curious to know! Share in the comments.
Best,
Kristina
Check my e-shop with super detailed and structured resources that will help you to:
1. set up your Dubai Freezone company without overpaying for an agent
2. connect with the best VCs and investors in the UAE
My newsletter is free, without ads, done aside bootstrapping my own startup.
Want to support my efforts? Buy me a coffee☕️