10 Traits of a Successful Founder

Scientific findings from the world’s largest behavioral study on early-stage startup founders

3 years ago, we started our data-driven mission of becoming the first Venture Capital Firm in America to use data from sourcing all the way through to investment decisions. As we initially built out our technology, we started with what we thought was the most important component of startup evaluation: The Team.

The Team is commonly regarded (by VCs) as one of the most important parts of the investment equation. Despite this, the team is often one of the least analyzed parts. For most Venture Funds, the analysis of the team is doing a qualitative look of technical skills, education, and prior startup experience. Or whatever you can gather from a resume and LinkedIn. While we do believe these variables have some merit, they provide an unfair playing field for multi-time founders and those with the privilege of attending elite universities. We wanted to go many layers deeper and quantify who people are on the inside.

Are we the first to look at what makes founders successful? No. However, we are the first to do it at scale with scientific rigor. Below is a sample size of our data compared to other authors or researchers that have dug into this same topic.

• Connetic Ventures: 6,000+ founder profiles, 1,200+ startup…