Success Breeds Success in Startups

hbs.edu

25 points·quizbiz··6 comments

Summary: a previously successful entrepreneur is two-thirds more likely to succeed in his next venture than a first-time entrepreneur. Part of this difference is (obviously) attributable to skill, but the paper makes and supports the claim that part of it is due to the fact that past success improves perception, making it easier get funded and to hire smart people. The key statement (slightly edited) is:

"Successful entrepreneurs are somewhat better than unsuccessful ones; the differential is amplified by their ability to attract more and better resources."

They define success as going public, but claim that "the findings are similar" if success is defined to include acquisitions and mergers.

It pretty much boils down to funds and streetcred. A first time entrepreneur starts out with 5-20K in savings and no connections. A failed entrepreneur is also in the same boat, no money, maybe a few connections.

Meanwhile a repeat successful entrepreneur has a few mil in the bank, street cred to get VC $$$ and free media coverage. And that gets them that starting core of users to help grow the service during hte early days.

Totally agree. Gaining initial traction is magnitudes harder as a first time entrepreneur. Would Twitter be at its current level if Evan Williams didn't have the credibility that came from founding Blogger?

When linking to a PDF: please put this in the title. I hate 'em.

Um, that's why the Scribd link is automagically generated.

Then it should say [pdf] and not [scribd].

The latter is to a proprietary web document viewer for PDF files.

The link provided is directly to a PDF file.

One is most definitely not the other. As much as some folks may wish it, Scribd != PDF.

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