Impact of founder’s personality on success of the start-up

Abstract

In this study, the impact of founder’s big 5 personality scores on the success of startups is analyzed. Founders’ personality scores are derived from the social media content generated by them on Twitter and LinkedIn. Analysis shows that certain personality traits like high openness, high emotional stability and low agreeableness are positively associated with success of the startup (measured by revenue) and a different personality trait, extraversion is positively associated with raising higher funding. Based on the results, authors argue that it can be beneficial for the startups to have different teams for pitching to investors and for day to day operations. Further, the authors look at the impact of gender biases, premier education and premium work experience on the funding & revenues. They argue that women founders are discriminated against by Investors when raising funding even though gender is not a significant predictor of potential success of the startup (revenues). They also show that premier education & work experience significantly impact both the likelihood of raising higher funding and operational success (revenues). In the post-hoc analysis, authors interact various variables like start up sector, personality types and gender to develop more nuanced hypotheses.