4 Factors That Predict Startup Success, and One That Doesn’t [Harvard Small Business]

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4 Factors That Predict Startup Success, and One
That Doesnt Harvard Small Business
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• What makes a venture capital investment
  successful? Some of the most interesting data on
  this question comes from an analysis published
  last year by the venture capital firm First Round
  Capital. 

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• The firms unique data set comprises
  information on over 300 companies and nearly 600
  founders, including founder characteristics such
  as age, gender, education, firm location, and
  prior work and startup experience. The study
  found several correlates with success  some
  reassuring, some surprising.

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• First, it found that high-performing investments
  tend to have at least one female founder.
• The data also shows that younger founders and
  founders with prestigious educational backgrounds
  or prior experience in large technology companies
  tend to be more successful. Theres evidence that
  startup success is somewhat geographically
  diverse, not limited to Silicon Valley.

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• Younger founding teams outperformed older
  ones. The research also looked at founder age,
  education, and experience. The average age of an
  entrepreneur is approximately 40, and there is
  reason to think that entrepreneurs improve with
  age.
• Teams with at least one founder who went to an
  elite school (defined by First Round as Ivy
  League, Stanford, or MIT) tended to perform
  better.

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• In First Rounds portfolio, 38 of the companies
  had one founder that went to one of those
  schools the study found that those companies
  performed about 220 better than other teams.
• First Round found that teams with at least one
  founder coming out of Amazon, Apple, Facebook,
  Google, Microsoft, or Twitter performed 160
  better than other companies.

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• Founding teams with experience at any of those
  tech companies also landed pre-money valuations
  nearly 50 larger than their peers.
• First Round companies started outside New York
  City and the San Francisco Bay Area performed
  just as well as those founded in traditional
  new-venture hubs. Twenty-five percent of the
  investments in the data set were outside these
  cities and, on average, performed slightly better
  than the rest.

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• https//www.ceoblognation.com/