Personality predicts startup success
According to a study published in May 2023, Brandon Freiberg and Sandra C. Matz of Columbia University found that personality traits affected all four (4) outcomes they studied.
| Chance of getting funded Being more intellectually open: +5% Being more agreeable: +5% | Funds raised Being more conscientious: + $170,000 Being less emotionally stable: -$90,000 |
| Getting more investors on board Being less conscientious: +0.2 investors Being more emotionally stable: +0.2 investors | Chance of exit in 8-12y Being less conscientious: +15% Being more emotionally stable: +16% |
In this table, the words “more” and “less” refer to scores that are 1 Standard Deviation above or below the average respectively.
We have reasons to expect that TraitFounder will produce even better results:
- While the researchers relied on social media posts as a proxy for self-report questionnaires, we directly employ self-report questionnaires, eliminating the need for a proxy.
- Moreover, the extraction of only the Big 5 factors from social media posts is limited, whereas our approach utilizes a significantly more comprehensive model, encompassing a broader range of detailed factors beyond just the standard 5 factors. The researchers also suggest that a more granular approach would probably better predict outcomes.
The science behind our approach
TraitFounder is not a generic personality questionnaire. It is built from the bottom up, with every question and every trait selected as close as possible to the intended occupational behaviors, including factor and item analyses, as well as correlations with other personality measures. To access this detailed information, please feel free to reach out to us, and we will gladly provide you with the full documentation.