10 ms·

What Makes Founders Succeed

189 points by revorad 11y ago

7Figures2Commas 11y ago
There are countless founders who have failed who: 1. Were determined. 2. Demonstrated perseverance. 3. Suffered rejection. 4. Are adaptable. 5. Weren't motivated entirely by money. The primary reason a founder succeeds is that he or she works on the right thing at the right time and does it in the right way. That's vague and practically unactionable, so it's not going to become a popular view, but the reality is there's no set of character traits that guarantee success, and there's no blueprint for building a successful company. If there was, 90% of the founders in Silicon Valley would be fabulously wealthy, and half the people who attend Startup School would have a unicorn within two years. You can have incredible character traits, but if you're working on the wrong thing, or going about building the right thing at the wrong time in the wrong ways, it doesn't matter how smart, hard-working, adaptable, etc. you are. The power law distributions at even the best venture capital funds demonstrate just how difficult it is to identify founders who are going to succeed, even when trying to do so is your full-time job.
- jordigg 11y ago
  I think we all agree here, but Jessica's point is about some traits that many successful founders shared among themselves. Having these traits alone won't make you succeed but if all other conditions are met your will have bigger chances of succeeding.
  - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
    > ...but Jessica's point is about some traits that many successful founders shared among themselves. My point is that these traits are shared among tons of founders who didn't succeed. So they clearly don't make founders succeed, making "What Makes Founders Succeed" a poor title for Jessica's post.
    - jordigg 11y ago
      > Having these traits alone won't make you succeed but if all other conditions are met your will have bigger chances of succeeding. I said that I agreed with your comment. Those traits may increase chances of succeeding when starting a startup but aren't the only thing you need to succeed.
  - kordless 11y ago
    You are making a claim that putting these traits into practice increases the probability of success. How would you propose going about measuring performance to prove it increases the probability?
    - jordigg 11y ago
      It's just my personal opinion, difficult to prove or measure, but I believe Jessica's point after meeting and working with over 900 startups and getting to know so many founders. We should learn the other side of the equation and analyze people who didn't succeed and why. Then we will be able to compare and prove (or not) increases probabilities. My personal experience, it did for me.
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  I think this comes down to necessary causes, sufficient causes and contributory causes. That it's harder to study the failures to get a clearer picture doesn't help. Survivorship bias tilts the picture.
  - ghufran_syed 11y ago
    Maybe if she does a second book, it should be about startup founders who are successful with one startup, then go on to do a second startup that fails. That population must exist, and the analysis would be really interesting.
- qmalxp 11y ago
  Perhaps the point isn't that people with these traits always succeed, but rather that people who succeed all have these traits.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - gull 11y ago
    And also, that knowing the traits doesn't mean you can change yourself to adopt them fast enough or at all.
- sulam 11y ago
  This is a constraint problem, right? Yes, you can outsmart the market and/or be lucky and pick a big problem at the right time, have the right resources, and nail execution. In that case you don't need to have any of the above to be successful. That's not exactly a revelation but it's not actionable, either. The interesting part that's going on here is that you can actually be successful without picking the right problem at the right time, with almost none of the right resources, and sometimes even with horrible execution. It's like a recipe for waffles. There's a lot of ways to make good waffles, where good is defined as tastes great, crispy, browned nicely, etc. You can tinker with the browning in a few different ways, you can tinker with how to get them to be light and fluffy, you can tinker with the flavor. Other than flour and water, almost nothing is absolutely required, but you have to have _some_ of the other things, and in the right proportions, or you're going to have a crappy breakfast. It seems like in both waffles and startups some recipes are more robust than others. They increase the chance of success even when other requirements aren't satisfied. I think what Jessica is getting at is that the most robust founders have perseverance (the first 3 all roll up to that trait) but aren't too stubborn to change their idea (#4). Their motivations are intrinsic, not externally defined (#5). None of these ingredients are absolutely required, but most successful startup recipes include them.
  - sulam 11y ago
    [Can you tell I had waffles this morning for breakfast? They were yummy, too! Yeast and an overnight rise makes for some really fluffy waffles, you should totally try it!]
- chmike 11y ago
  Jessica identified a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship.
  - ckuehne 11y ago
    But this is exactly the point. How do you know that it is a correlation? To establish a correlation you would also have to look at all the founders who did not succeed. As far as I am aware, Jessica has not done this.
    - chmike 11y ago
      My use of correlation is indeed confusing and probably inappropriate. What I ment to say is that Jassica saw these common traits in successful founders. We can thus deduce that these are probably required. But they are obviously not sufficient.
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  >The primary reason a founder succeeds is that he or she works on the right thing at the right time and does it in the right way. I think this is very true. But the interesting thing is that often the founders themselves don't know their project is the right thing at the right time. Even after the official start of my site it took me almost a year to realize what the project actually is, and even now I'm working every day to define it so I can express it to others. As it grows I have to get to know it more and adapt it so it can grow even more. The ability to be able to adapt your project to the market is the key to success I think. Darwin said: It is not the strongest of the species that survives, but rather, that which is most adaptable to change. That means you have to know your market and you have to know what you are doing. You need to know where you want to go, and the steps you need to do to get there. You need to try stuff. Most of it won't work, but some will. You need to do things for the sake of the business even if you do not personally want to do them. The business and its market may not be obvious at first so it's important to persist and revise and look for ways to grow, to survive until you get understanding. It's like that thing where people say they want to follow their passion. If you start a business and it grows you will quickly become passionate about it. But you have to start it.
jordigg 11y ago
Would love to see a new book about successful and not so successful founders and lessons learned along the way. Comparing them with the first book to find interesting facts about how things and people's perspective have changed over time will be very interesting. Something else would love to read about is international founders and how moving to the valley helped them succeed comparing when they were in their respective countries. Thanks to Jessica for all her work and heart she is putting helping founders succeed and this way inspire others around the world to keep creating great things.
DenisM 11y ago
A funny story linked to this book. Having read half the book at the time it came out, I noticed that there is pretty much nothing in common between all the various founders. In particular founders of RIM and Craigslist are people from different planets. I complained loudly about it, and eventually a friend pointed out that there was something I overlooked - they have all tried. Somehow that turned out to be a profound revelation to me. Combined with another push from a colleague, who's said "Denis, you always talk about these ideas you had, how come you never do much with them", that got me to start doing things rather than thinking about them.
- briholt 11y ago
  "Showing up is half the battle"
  - nothrabannosir 11y ago
    "The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle."
    - briholt 11y ago
      Understanding the battle is three halves the battle.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    "the other half is actually winning"
    - fezz 11y ago
      And there's short term winning and long term winning. You can win short term as a founder and screw things up long term.
      - Retra 11y ago
        I'm curious what inspires people to go three levels deep into a game of tautological platitudes.
visarga 11y ago
Luck and passion. But mostly luck. Example: how is it possible that Google couldn't make its own successful video streaming service and had to buy YT for billions? They had the expertise and money, but it didn't catch on. Why did previous tablets fail and iPad succeed? Microsoft was into tablets long before iPad. Sometimes, no matter how rich or smart you are, or how good your idea is, it's going to flop because it didn't encounter the perfect environment and moment to take roots. Because not even rich players can control the environment, they resort to buying promising startups trying to hitch a ride to success on their wings, or alternatively, the YCombinator model of seeding and grooming startups. How many of YC startups flopped, even with help? Edit: seems I am not in agreement with the crowd. Instead of downvoting, please argue in replies.
- paul 11y ago
  If you don't understand the difference between the original Microsoft tablet and the iPad, then it's not surprising that success appears to be all luck. Details matter.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- DenisM 11y ago
  Luck is important, but not uncontrollable. Successful people manufacture their own luck - they study probabilities and maneuver to become exposed to the best chances, repeatedly.
- jordigg 11y ago
  Haven't downvoted, I'm too young! Luck (probability) exists, but I'm of those ones who believe that what you get is a result of what you have done before. Do you really think iPad is selling more than Microsoft because a lack of passion or luck? Same with Google and YT. I think you are wrong here and most of the times people use the excuse of bad luck, timing, etc. to protect themselves of their bad execution.
- dasil003 11y ago
Alex3917 11y ago
In addition to successful innovations looking bad, successful founders often look pretty bad as well. Maybe not right when they're starting whatever business that is actually going to be successful, because presumably by that point they more or less have their shit together. But certainly five or ten years before, when they are spending their time learning things that are valuable rather than optimizing for grades, career success, etc.
zekevermillion 11y ago
When I read about founders, I always think back to a college class I took, Weapons War & Strategy. The instructor had a favorite anecdote, to show the vast difference between normal people and elite warriors. In WWII, the German Navy used submarines to prowl around looking for shipping to sink. And it had a big (at least psychological) impact. But statistically something like 90% of tonnage sunk by the Kriegsmarine was due to 1% of U-boat captains. The rest of them were apparently just cruising around the ocean trying to avoid getting killed themselves.
- toxicFork 11y ago
  Are Kriegsmarine the submarines? Are U-boats submarines? What's a tonnage? Who's "the rest of them", are they the ships that sank? Sorry I'm not great with history or the navy...
  - pm 11y ago
    Kriegsmarine was (I think) the name for the German navy. U-boats were essentially submarines. Tonnage was the proportion of weight of the boats sunk. The "rest of them" refers to the rest of the U-boat captains.
staunch 11y ago
What prevents JL from creating a Founders at Work 2 is what prevents 99% of founders from creating their first startup. For most founders the situation is far bleaker though. There's an incredible amount of sacrifice required to even attempt a startup if you have a family, can't get investors, and all your friends and family are poor people. And yet this is what most people face today. Determination alone really isn't enough. You need help. The one thing all successful founders have in common is that they found help early on from people in a position to help.
- david927 11y ago
  And since, "If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats," those people almost certainly didn't get that initial help from the idea itself. They got it from who they were. In other words, if you don't have rich friends or family, or you don't have a 'pedigree' based on where you went to school, be very careful because you're in for a bad time. I'm not saying it's impossible (because the lottery is also not impossible), I'm just saying I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
  - S4M 11y ago
    On the other hand, it's fairly possible for an engineer to take some time off to build something he believes in. In the worse case, what would have been lost is the salary from that time spent on building something that didn't take off, but since the job market for engineers is good, it's definitely affordable.
  - jordigg 11y ago
    It may take you longer to get there, but you can do it without rich families, good connections and "pedigree". I've proven it myself many times. Just want something and work your ass off.
    - david927 11y ago
      I'm not saying it's impossible (because the lottery is also not impossible), I'm just saying I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
sparkzilla 11y ago
It's a really great essay. I love the quote "Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats". I think the most exciting time for a founder is when you've done that and the world starts to catch up with you, and the uncertainty, rejection, stress and work starts to pay off. For those interested I collected many of Jessica's interviews here: http://newslines.org/jessica-livingston/ http://newslines.org/jessica-livingston/
semerda 11y ago
Love the book! Could founder success early on be broken into 2 parts?: 1. Founder EQ (internal + external) and 2. Market/Time. We know that in the wrong market/time startups have a hard time gaining traction. Sometimes you need to give time i.e. keep going through the dark times; to reach a time when the market is ready/needs what you are offering. It's that analogy "A rising tide lifts all boats". So you need to get your boat into the water. As for Founder EQ. Internally - strong to battle through the tough emotional times (perseverance, adaptability etc) and externally - how the founders communicate and work together to get stuff done. We know founder disputes kill many early startups. Once traction is gained and money flows then those 2 might not be as important. Money does solve many problems. At that point everyone inside the company is spinning the cog and inertia takes over.
bozoUser 11y ago
I haven`t read the book but it would be interesting if we can see some stories about founders who have failed or the mistakes that these founders committed that proved very costly. Would love to see some major examples of what/how things went wrong - did some feature/stand from the founders or board result in a backlash from the community (ex: recent press on reddit) or a product that couldn't stand by itself for too long etc.
dom96 11y ago
I've never read this book but would love to. After looking it up on Amazon I see two books: Founders at Work and European Founders at Work. Has anybody read both or can comment on either? Should I buy the former, the latter (I live in Europe) or both?
- cjbarber 11y ago
  The former is by Jessica. The second one is not by Jessica -- seems to be an inspired imitation. I'd suggest buying the former (at least at first).
throwaway41597 11y ago
If determination is the single most important quality, doesn't it deserve its own book? Determination is so personal and emotional, it'd be hard to find founders willing to confide, but I believe it would fill a huge need for aspiring founders. Maybe some stories would have to be anonymous, but if vetted by an author such as jl, that would be okay I think. It would also be useful to hear more actual failure stories, not only those from founders who have managed to turn things around, but those who just failed. Even if it scares some away from startups, maybe there are some lessons to be learnt too.
- sskates 11y ago
  If I ever invested money I'd look at determination as the primary criteria. It's hard to measure though- what questions would be good to figure out how determined someone is?
  - throwaway41597 11y ago
    I'd look at past projects. Some ideas: - How long did it last? - How successful was it? - How hard was it really (novelty, competition, complexity, regulations, number of people involved, lines of code if applicable)? - What were their mistakes? Which were the most painful? - How did they correct their trajectory? - What will they change this time? But you have to calibrate your expectations with the current project, otherwise you'll pretty much filter any first timer.
- unabst 11y ago
  Actually I don't agree that determination is personal. It boils down to love really. It's the passion that keeps every founder going and most of them wear it on their sleeve in addition to completely embodying it. They use it to hire people, to sell their idea, and to keep going. But the key is for passion to ascend into will power. The best common man analogy is when we must go pee. We do whatever it takes to prevent public embarrassment with complete focus, maximum speed, and accute intellect. For a moment we all become geniuses. Entreprenuers use this power to overcome anything. Of course not because they want to but because they are forced to... As if to avoid embarrassment.
decisiveness 11y ago
>People like the idea of innovation in the abstract, but when you present them with any specific innovation, they tend to reject it, because it doesn’t fit with what they already know. This can be true, but I think often, people tend to reject an idea because it does fit with what they already know. People look for usefulness, and will hastily disregard something that reminds them of a previous innovation that failed. I don't doubt they are sometimes wrong, and perseverance on a seemingly weak innovation can be turned into something wildly successful, I just wonder how many founders wasted much effort trying to succeed when their innovation never really had a chance to be very useful.
brobdingnagian 11y ago
Anytime you see a title like "What Makes Founders Succeed" you immediately know that whatever is behind the link is bullshit.
hkmurakami 11y ago
This is not to knock anything or anyone at all but... to posit that "perseverance makes founders succeed" seems to promote some very strong survivor bias. Or maybe it just sounds sort of perversely tautological to me. Seeing people follow necessary but not sufficient conditions just sounds perilous to me, even as a founder myself.
- chmike 11y ago
  Succeeding founders where perseverant, but being perseverant will necessarily make you succeed. It is a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship.

189 points by revorad 11y ago

There are countless founders who have failed who: 1. Were determined. 2. Demonstrated perseverance. 3. Suffered rejection. 4. Are adaptable. 5. Weren't motivated entirely by money. The primary reason a founder succeeds is that he or she works on the right thing at the right time and does it in the right way. That's vague and practically unactionable, so it's not going to become a popular view, but the reality is there's no set of character traits that guarantee success, and there's no blueprint for building a successful company. If there was, 90% of the founders in Silicon Valley would be fabulously wealthy, and half the people who attend Startup School would have a unicorn within two years. You can have incredible character traits, but if you're working on the wrong thing, or going about building the right thing at the wrong time in the wrong ways, it doesn't matter how smart, hard-working, adaptable, etc. you are. The power law distributions at even the best venture capital funds demonstrate just how difficult it is to identify founders who are going to succeed, even when trying to do so is your full-time job.

jordigg 11y ago
I think we all agree here, but Jessica's point is about some traits that many successful founders shared among themselves. Having these traits alone won't make you succeed but if all other conditions are met your will have bigger chances of succeeding.
- 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
  > ...but Jessica's point is about some traits that many successful founders shared among themselves. My point is that these traits are shared among tons of founders who didn't succeed. So they clearly don't make founders succeed, making "What Makes Founders Succeed" a poor title for Jessica's post.
  - jordigg 11y ago
    > Having these traits alone won't make you succeed but if all other conditions are met your will have bigger chances of succeeding. I said that I agreed with your comment. Those traits may increase chances of succeeding when starting a startup but aren't the only thing you need to succeed.
- kordless 11y ago
  You are making a claim that putting these traits into practice increases the probability of success. How would you propose going about measuring performance to prove it increases the probability?
  - jordigg 11y ago
    It's just my personal opinion, difficult to prove or measure, but I believe Jessica's point after meeting and working with over 900 startups and getting to know so many founders. We should learn the other side of the equation and analyze people who didn't succeed and why. Then we will be able to compare and prove (or not) increases probabilities. My personal experience, it did for me.
jacques_chester 11y ago
I think this comes down to necessary causes, sufficient causes and contributory causes. That it's harder to study the failures to get a clearer picture doesn't help. Survivorship bias tilts the picture.
- ghufran_syed 11y ago
  Maybe if she does a second book, it should be about startup founders who are successful with one startup, then go on to do a second startup that fails. That population must exist, and the analysis would be really interesting.
qmalxp 11y ago
Perhaps the point isn't that people with these traits always succeed, but rather that people who succeed all have these traits.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- gull 11y ago
  And also, that knowing the traits doesn't mean you can change yourself to adopt them fast enough or at all.
sulam 11y ago
This is a constraint problem, right? Yes, you can outsmart the market and/or be lucky and pick a big problem at the right time, have the right resources, and nail execution. In that case you don't need to have any of the above to be successful. That's not exactly a revelation but it's not actionable, either. The interesting part that's going on here is that you can actually be successful without picking the right problem at the right time, with almost none of the right resources, and sometimes even with horrible execution. It's like a recipe for waffles. There's a lot of ways to make good waffles, where good is defined as tastes great, crispy, browned nicely, etc. You can tinker with the browning in a few different ways, you can tinker with how to get them to be light and fluffy, you can tinker with the flavor. Other than flour and water, almost nothing is absolutely required, but you have to have _some_ of the other things, and in the right proportions, or you're going to have a crappy breakfast. It seems like in both waffles and startups some recipes are more robust than others. They increase the chance of success even when other requirements aren't satisfied. I think what Jessica is getting at is that the most robust founders have perseverance (the first 3 all roll up to that trait) but aren't too stubborn to change their idea (#4). Their motivations are intrinsic, not externally defined (#5). None of these ingredients are absolutely required, but most successful startup recipes include them.
- sulam 11y ago
  [Can you tell I had waffles this morning for breakfast? They were yummy, too! Yeast and an overnight rise makes for some really fluffy waffles, you should totally try it!]
chmike 11y ago
Jessica identified a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship.
- ckuehne 11y ago
  But this is exactly the point. How do you know that it is a correlation? To establish a correlation you would also have to look at all the founders who did not succeed. As far as I am aware, Jessica has not done this.
  - chmike 11y ago
    My use of correlation is indeed confusing and probably inappropriate. What I ment to say is that Jassica saw these common traits in successful founders. We can thus deduce that these are probably required. But they are obviously not sufficient.
sparkzilla 11y ago
>The primary reason a founder succeeds is that he or she works on the right thing at the right time and does it in the right way. I think this is very true. But the interesting thing is that often the founders themselves don't know their project is the right thing at the right time. Even after the official start of my site it took me almost a year to realize what the project actually is, and even now I'm working every day to define it so I can express it to others. As it grows I have to get to know it more and adapt it so it can grow even more. The ability to be able to adapt your project to the market is the key to success I think. Darwin said: It is not the strongest of the species that survives, but rather, that which is most adaptable to change. That means you have to know your market and you have to know what you are doing. You need to know where you want to go, and the steps you need to do to get there. You need to try stuff. Most of it won't work, but some will. You need to do things for the sake of the business even if you do not personally want to do them. The business and its market may not be obvious at first so it's important to persist and revise and look for ways to grow, to survive until you get understanding. It's like that thing where people say they want to follow their passion. If you start a business and it grows you will quickly become passionate about it. But you have to start it.

jordigg 11y ago

Would love to see a new book about successful and not so successful founders and lessons learned along the way. Comparing them with the first book to find interesting facts about how things and people's perspective have changed over time will be very interesting. Something else would love to read about is international founders and how moving to the valley helped them succeed comparing when they were in their respective countries. Thanks to Jessica for all her work and heart she is putting helping founders succeed and this way inspire others around the world to keep creating great things.

DenisM 11y ago

A funny story linked to this book. Having read half the book at the time it came out, I noticed that there is pretty much nothing in common between all the various founders. In particular founders of RIM and Craigslist are people from different planets. I complained loudly about it, and eventually a friend pointed out that there was something I overlooked - they have all tried. Somehow that turned out to be a profound revelation to me. Combined with another push from a colleague, who's said "Denis, you always talk about these ideas you had, how come you never do much with them", that got me to start doing things rather than thinking about them.

briholt 11y ago
"Showing up is half the battle"
- nothrabannosir 11y ago
  "The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle."
  - briholt 11y ago
    Understanding the battle is three halves the battle.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  "the other half is actually winning"
  - fezz 11y ago
    And there's short term winning and long term winning. You can win short term as a founder and screw things up long term.
    - Retra 11y ago
      I'm curious what inspires people to go three levels deep into a game of tautological platitudes.

visarga 11y ago

Luck and passion. But mostly luck. Example: how is it possible that Google couldn't make its own successful video streaming service and had to buy YT for billions? They had the expertise and money, but it didn't catch on. Why did previous tablets fail and iPad succeed? Microsoft was into tablets long before iPad. Sometimes, no matter how rich or smart you are, or how good your idea is, it's going to flop because it didn't encounter the perfect environment and moment to take roots. Because not even rich players can control the environment, they resort to buying promising startups trying to hitch a ride to success on their wings, or alternatively, the YCombinator model of seeding and grooming startups. How many of YC startups flopped, even with help? Edit: seems I am not in agreement with the crowd. Instead of downvoting, please argue in replies.

paul 11y ago
If you don't understand the difference between the original Microsoft tablet and the iPad, then it's not surprising that success appears to be all luck. Details matter.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
DenisM 11y ago
Luck is important, but not uncontrollable. Successful people manufacture their own luck - they study probabilities and maneuver to become exposed to the best chances, repeatedly.
jordigg 11y ago
Haven't downvoted, I'm too young! Luck (probability) exists, but I'm of those ones who believe that what you get is a result of what you have done before. Do you really think iPad is selling more than Microsoft because a lack of passion or luck? Same with Google and YT. I think you are wrong here and most of the times people use the excuse of bad luck, timing, etc. to protect themselves of their bad execution.
dasil003 11y ago

Alex3917 11y ago

In addition to successful innovations looking bad, successful founders often look pretty bad as well. Maybe not right when they're starting whatever business that is actually going to be successful, because presumably by that point they more or less have their shit together. But certainly five or ten years before, when they are spending their time learning things that are valuable rather than optimizing for grades, career success, etc.

zekevermillion 11y ago

When I read about founders, I always think back to a college class I took, Weapons War & Strategy. The instructor had a favorite anecdote, to show the vast difference between normal people and elite warriors. In WWII, the German Navy used submarines to prowl around looking for shipping to sink. And it had a big (at least psychological) impact. But statistically something like 90% of tonnage sunk by the Kriegsmarine was due to 1% of U-boat captains. The rest of them were apparently just cruising around the ocean trying to avoid getting killed themselves.

toxicFork 11y ago
Are Kriegsmarine the submarines? Are U-boats submarines? What's a tonnage? Who's "the rest of them", are they the ships that sank? Sorry I'm not great with history or the navy...
- pm 11y ago
  Kriegsmarine was (I think) the name for the German navy. U-boats were essentially submarines. Tonnage was the proportion of weight of the boats sunk. The "rest of them" refers to the rest of the U-boat captains.

staunch 11y ago

What prevents JL from creating a Founders at Work 2 is what prevents 99% of founders from creating their first startup. For most founders the situation is far bleaker though. There's an incredible amount of sacrifice required to even attempt a startup if you have a family, can't get investors, and all your friends and family are poor people. And yet this is what most people face today. Determination alone really isn't enough. You need help. The one thing all successful founders have in common is that they found help early on from people in a position to help.

david927 11y ago
And since, "If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats," those people almost certainly didn't get that initial help from the idea itself. They got it from who they were. In other words, if you don't have rich friends or family, or you don't have a 'pedigree' based on where you went to school, be very careful because you're in for a bad time. I'm not saying it's impossible (because the lottery is also not impossible), I'm just saying I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
- S4M 11y ago
  On the other hand, it's fairly possible for an engineer to take some time off to build something he believes in. In the worse case, what would have been lost is the salary from that time spent on building something that didn't take off, but since the job market for engineers is good, it's definitely affordable.
- jordigg 11y ago
  It may take you longer to get there, but you can do it without rich families, good connections and "pedigree". I've proven it myself many times. Just want something and work your ass off.
  - david927 11y ago
    I'm not saying it's impossible (because the lottery is also not impossible), I'm just saying I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

sparkzilla 11y ago

It's a really great essay. I love the quote "Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats". I think the most exciting time for a founder is when you've done that and the world starts to catch up with you, and the uncertainty, rejection, stress and work starts to pay off. For those interested I collected many of Jessica's interviews here: http://newslines.org/jessica-livingston/ http://newslines.org/jessica-livingston/

semerda 11y ago

Love the book! Could founder success early on be broken into 2 parts?: 1. Founder EQ (internal + external) and 2. Market/Time. We know that in the wrong market/time startups have a hard time gaining traction. Sometimes you need to give time i.e. keep going through the dark times; to reach a time when the market is ready/needs what you are offering. It's that analogy "A rising tide lifts all boats". So you need to get your boat into the water. As for Founder EQ. Internally - strong to battle through the tough emotional times (perseverance, adaptability etc) and externally - how the founders communicate and work together to get stuff done. We know founder disputes kill many early startups. Once traction is gained and money flows then those 2 might not be as important. Money does solve many problems. At that point everyone inside the company is spinning the cog and inertia takes over.

bozoUser 11y ago

I haven`t read the book but it would be interesting if we can see some stories about founders who have failed or the mistakes that these founders committed that proved very costly. Would love to see some major examples of what/how things went wrong - did some feature/stand from the founders or board result in a backlash from the community (ex: recent press on reddit) or a product that couldn't stand by itself for too long etc.

dom96 11y ago

I've never read this book but would love to. After looking it up on Amazon I see two books: Founders at Work and European Founders at Work. Has anybody read both or can comment on either? Should I buy the former, the latter (I live in Europe) or both?

cjbarber 11y ago
The former is by Jessica. The second one is not by Jessica -- seems to be an inspired imitation. I'd suggest buying the former (at least at first).

throwaway41597 11y ago

If determination is the single most important quality, doesn't it deserve its own book? Determination is so personal and emotional, it'd be hard to find founders willing to confide, but I believe it would fill a huge need for aspiring founders. Maybe some stories would have to be anonymous, but if vetted by an author such as jl, that would be okay I think. It would also be useful to hear more actual failure stories, not only those from founders who have managed to turn things around, but those who just failed. Even if it scares some away from startups, maybe there are some lessons to be learnt too.

sskates 11y ago
If I ever invested money I'd look at determination as the primary criteria. It's hard to measure though- what questions would be good to figure out how determined someone is?
- throwaway41597 11y ago
  I'd look at past projects. Some ideas: - How long did it last? - How successful was it? - How hard was it really (novelty, competition, complexity, regulations, number of people involved, lines of code if applicable)? - What were their mistakes? Which were the most painful? - How did they correct their trajectory? - What will they change this time? But you have to calibrate your expectations with the current project, otherwise you'll pretty much filter any first timer.
unabst 11y ago
Actually I don't agree that determination is personal. It boils down to love really. It's the passion that keeps every founder going and most of them wear it on their sleeve in addition to completely embodying it. They use it to hire people, to sell their idea, and to keep going. But the key is for passion to ascend into will power. The best common man analogy is when we must go pee. We do whatever it takes to prevent public embarrassment with complete focus, maximum speed, and accute intellect. For a moment we all become geniuses. Entreprenuers use this power to overcome anything. Of course not because they want to but because they are forced to... As if to avoid embarrassment.

decisiveness 11y ago

>People like the idea of innovation in the abstract, but when you present them with any specific innovation, they tend to reject it, because it doesn’t fit with what they already know. This can be true, but I think often, people tend to reject an idea because it does fit with what they already know. People look for usefulness, and will hastily disregard something that reminds them of a previous innovation that failed. I don't doubt they are sometimes wrong, and perseverance on a seemingly weak innovation can be turned into something wildly successful, I just wonder how many founders wasted much effort trying to succeed when their innovation never really had a chance to be very useful.

brobdingnagian 11y ago

Anytime you see a title like "What Makes Founders Succeed" you immediately know that whatever is behind the link is bullshit.

hkmurakami 11y ago

This is not to knock anything or anyone at all but... to posit that "perseverance makes founders succeed" seems to promote some very strong survivor bias. Or maybe it just sounds sort of perversely tautological to me. Seeing people follow necessary but not sufficient conditions just sounds perilous to me, even as a founder myself.

chmike 11y ago
Succeeding founders where perseverant, but being perseverant will necessarily make you succeed. It is a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship.