Should You Start A Startup? | Startup School

TL;DR

Resilience is the most important quality for startup founders, outweighing confidence or conventional career success signals. Initial motivations (e.g., money, curiosity) are fine because they can evolve; what matters are enduring motivations like genuine interest in the problem and enjoyment of cofounder relationships.

Key insights

• Resilience, not confidence or past career success, is the strongest predictor of founder success; confident people can lack resilience, while quiet founders can be highly resilient (e.g., Benchling’s
• Initial motivation to start a startup (e.g., getting rich, curiosity) is irrelevant because motivations change over time; enduring motivations are genuine interest in the problem and love for the peop
• The “worst-case scenario” analysis must factor in the learning value of founding a startup, which improves career opportunities even if the company fails (e.g., former founders are actively recruited