Entrepreneurial DNA

If you have not heard just yet the Founder Institute is coming to Atlanta. Applications for the Winter sessions starting in January are due today.

I got roped into this thing by innocently walking down the hall one day at the Atlanta Tech Village. I am going to be guiding some of the Founder Institute company founders. While looking things over I noticed that there was a predictive admissions test that the Founder Institute administered to determine a person's DNA profille. I asked if I could take it and they obliged.

Entrepreneur DNA Profile: Lance Weatherby 

  • Your Overall Predictive Score is in the 87% percentile of 15,000+ worldwide applicants. According to our test, you have a very high probability of becoming a successful entrepreneur. 
  • Your strongest entrepreneurial trait is your high level of Openness. This means that you are a very curious and creative person, you seek change and adventure, and you can easily adapt to new norms. 
  • Your second strongest entrepreneurial trait is your high level of responsibility. 
  • Your weakest entrepreneurial trait is that you may have an overly negative outlook in very high stress situations, which could prohibit you from performing at your top capabilities in those situations.
  • You have no major personality flags, such as Predatory Aggressiveness, Excuse-Making, Deceit, Emotional Instability, or Narcissism.
  • You have very high Conscientiousness, which means that you are very organized and goal-oriented. 
  • You have medium-high Extroversion, which means that you are considered to be friendly, enjoy being the center of attention, and may be considered a thrill seeker by others.
  • You have a moderately-low Agreeableness, which means that you have a high degree of skepticism and suspicion, but not to the degree of being unfriendly or uncooperative.
  • You have medium-high Fluid Intelligence, which means that you can quickly learn a rule set and apply the learned logic to solve novel problems. 

Interesting stuff. It feels accurate to me. I once had a colleague characterize me as Eeyore, something that I protest to this day.

But the more interesting stuff is that the Founder Institute has given this test to over 15,000 applicants of which 2,500 joined the program and over 1,000 graduated. They claim that it is 85% accurate in predicting entrepreneur success.

They have found that professional experience, high fluid intelligence, high openness, and moderate agreeableness are the traits behind entrepreneur success. All those personality flags mentioned above are bad. Surprisingly conscientiousness and IQ show little correlation with founder success.

December 22, 2013  |  Comments  |  Tweet  |  Posted in Entrepreneurship