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There are countless founders who have failed who: 1. Were determined. 2. Demonstrated perseverance. 3. Suffered rejection. 4. Are adaptable. 5. Weren't mot

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

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.