Founders of Companies Worth Over a Billion Dollars Have These Simple Things in Common

Ever wonderment what founders of "unicorn" companies, aliases startups worthy astatine slightest a cardinal dollars, person successful common?

After looking astatine information from 845 unicorns and 2,018 unicorn founders successful nan U.S. and U.K. from nan past decade, Defiance Capital recovered 3 common, qualitative traits successful nan "DNA" of unicorn founders:

1. They do not person a backup plan
2. They person individual stories of emotion constricted aliases unfairly treated
3. They judge successful themselves.

"The stories that are coming retired show crazy determination," Defiance Capital laminitis Christian Dorffer told TechCrunch.

Dorffer said nan founders each shared "hunger, self-belief, ingenuity, and resilience."

Related: A New AI Startup from Unicorn Founders Wants Businesses to Know Their 'Worth'

The study recovered that 70% of unicorns had "underdog" founders, which nan researchers defined arsenic founders who were immigrants, women, aliases group of color.

The study besides recovered that much than half of nan founders (53%) had degrees from apical world universities. Most laminitis teams (70%) had astatine slightest 1 personification pinch a STEM grade (science, technology, engineering, aliases math).

Founder teams were much communal successful nan billion-dollar startup bracket than solo founders, pinch 80% of unicorns led by a team. Half of nan founders surveyed were serial entrepreneurs, truthful they had created astatine slightest 1 different institution earlier reaching a billion-dollar-plus valuation pinch their unicorn startup.

Related: Want to Start a Billion-Dollar Business? Look to These Two Industries, Which Have nan Most Unicorn Growth

A abstracted February study found that 2 industries stood retired past twelvemonth successful producing unicorns: cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. As of March 2024, location are much than 1,000 unicorns astir nan world, including OpenAI, Canva, and SpaceX, according to CB Insights.

Dorffer is now readying to create a podcast and question and reply galore of nan unicorn founders surveyed successful nan study.