Super Founders:  What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups, by Ali Tamaseb, PublicAffairs 2021

Let the data lead you.  Dorian Shainin

Let's just say that you are out there doing a daily drive into work, watching your stock investments go up and down like a wounded helicopter, but you know you are good at software.  You've got the time, and you have a few rich friends - better yet you have access to a couple investment firms that always go for start-ups.  You've paid off all your school loans, and for a long while you've been noodling this idea.  A software idea, something that takes product design ideas and very quickly turns them into live products with complete material alternatives....

Just what would it take to move this idea safely into the heart and hands of those Special Investors, and more immediately, how fast could you get it done?

Well, what you are thinking of doing has been in fact done.  And in Super Founders you will see and hear testimony from the winners - not always a perfect journey, but the monetary successes - as Dorian Shainin said with his "Let the data lead you - "  speak for the formula.  Take a look at these examples:

Arie Belldegrun - co-founder of two billion dollar start-ups (while employed as a university professor)

Nat Turner - co-founder Flatiron Health

Max Mullen - do-founder Instacard

Tony Fadell, co-founder Nest, and inventor of the ipod

Max Levchin - co-founder PayPal and Affirm

Eric Yuan, founder of Zoom

Alfred Lin, partner Sequoia Capital

etc.

Although each of these founders and investors tells a different story, the author sees a common personality trend among them - relentlessness!  As well, Tamaseb offers sixty-five success factors that make all the difference in end results, including:

number of competitors at time of founding

market size

market need (stated or unknown)

founder's age

university educational standing/history

career history (or lack thereof)

Although the author's data shows that surprisingly there seems to be a range of ages among billion-dollar start-up champions, there is room for all ages.  And fortunately for us, the university with the highest number of billion-dollar startups is.... trumpets please.. MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).  

Read this data-filled exposé of start-up folklore to determine the real stories behind our favorite market killers.  The author offers many of his insights cast in the language of an investor or a VC (venture capital) observer hunting his next win.  Its a fascinating look at what works, and depending on many other circumstances, what doesn't quite make it.  

Mill Girl Verdict A++.   Fun read, stakes high, tells a drama and emotion filled story through the numbers.  As Dorian pounded into us, "Let the data lead you."

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  patriciaemoody@gmail.com