- Uncanny drive in a clear direction. Conviction.
- Knows his/her companies secret sauce and guards it, grows it.
- Complete integrity. His/her past decisions and actions should be evidence of this.
- Manages leanly. Avoids waste. Manages time and money well.
- Builds and inspires his/her village: employees, investors, advisors
- Minimizes risk. An entrepreneur is by definition comfortable with risk; but the best ones don’t seek risk, they seek to minimize risk
- Business ability. There is no free lunch. The usual qualities of successful business people are important:
- Intelligence
- Decision making skills; particularly knowing when its time to wait and assess, and time to decide and act
- Organization and time management
- Leadership; motivating and managing people
- Education (of note, First Round reviewed their 10 year history, and found that their portfolio companies with one or more founders with a degree from an Ivy League School, Stanford, MIT, or Caltech, performed 220% better than other teams).
Red flags
- A cavalier attitude to failure. Failure is not a virtue, despite what you might read or hear. Failure has no inherent value and is the worst outcome for investors. Of course, many monumental successes have been born out of failure — it can create time to think, learn, change, and be brilliant — but its what you do after a flop that counts.
- A lack of relevant experience and skills, especially when you don’t appreciate what you don’t know, and don’t build a “village” to compensate.