“Founder” refers to accomplishments, a shorthand for someone who created something and built a business around it. The term does not refer to a set of skills or

“Founder” refers to accomplishments, a shorthand for someone who created something and built a business around it. The term does not refer to a set of skills or some combination of qualities. No one “is” a founder until they founded something, like no one “is” a parent until they have a child. People who have studied learning mostly settled on focused practice as the most effective way to acquire skills — hundreds or thousands of hours of trial and error. You can read books about how to play guitar or write computer programs but to actually acquire and master those skills you need lots of deliberate practice, and some reference (like a mentor or teacher) to let you know what you get right and what you need to work on. The skills required to start a software company will vary a lot from the skills required to open a restaurant or a school. People who have founded businesses probably share some traits such as persistence and confidence and abilitity to sell and motivate people, you can read about those people but I don’t think that gets you any closer to founding anything. Anecdotally the successful founders I’ve known start with some skills they’ve mastered through experience, and an understanding of a business domain. They usually worked for a long time for other people to acquire skills, experience, contacts, and domain knowledge.