Oli Gibson

This article was written by Adeo Ressi and first published on Tech Crunch. I felt it was interesting enough to also be published on the SStartup Newsletter. Adeo Ressi, is the founder of The Founder Institute and TheFunded.com In this guest post he argues against ageism when it comes to to entrepreneurs. Ressi is 39. Over to Adeo.
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The recent articles proclaiming that 25 is the peak age for entrepreneurship deserve a considered and factual response. The demographic and racial profiling that has plagued venture capital and tech entrepreneurship has a new friend—ageism. This has to stop.

Anecdotal Evidence:
It does not take but one minute to look around the world and prove any thesis of a peak tech founder age incorrect. There are countless entrepreneurs over the age of 30, including Reid Hoffman (age 35 in 2002), Evan Williams of Twitter (age 35 in 2007), Mark Pincus of Zynga (age 41 in 2007), Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (age 54 in 2005), among many others.

A commonly held belief is that younger founders appear to inspire waves of innovation, like in the mid-1990s and even today with Facebook, while older entrepreneurs launch sustainable businesses. The reality is more complicated. There are older inventors and entrepreneurs, like Dean Kamen (age 60) or Elon Musk of SpaceX (age 39), who continue to create revolutionary products; and there are, of course, thousands of young entrepreneurs pursuing “me too” businesses.

Anecdotal data is at best inconclusive. I launched my first internet business at the age of 22 in 1994, and through naive optimism and blind luck, it eventually became worth over $600 million. My direct impact on the value creation was relatively low. In fact, many of the revolutionary internet businesses started in the mid-1990′s were founded by 20-somethings with blind optimism. However, the majority of the sustainable businesses created in the 90′s were founded or run by older entrepreneurs.

In some cases, older entrepreneurs paired up with the younger founders, like Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both age 25 in 1998, and Eric Schmidt was age 46 in 2001). In other cases, more successful clones were launched by older entrepreneurs, like Amazon (Jeff Bezos was age 30 in 1994). And, many young founders were pushed out or sidelined for more seasoned leaders, like with PayPal (Peter Thiel took over from younger founders when he was age 31 in 1998).

Anecdotal evidence, personal stories, and biased sample sets are not the best way to draw meaningful conclusions, so let’s look at some facts.

Factual Data:
In order to identify the traits of successful entrepreneurs, the Founder Institute has conducted a battery of proprietary personality and aptitude tests on over 3,000 applicants worldwide, and then carefully tracked the progress of our nearly 1,000 enrolled founders and 350 graduates. Research scientists employed by the Institute have examined the results of the successful founders and the less successful cases, looking at high-level traits and even examining test results on a question by question basis.

The research shows that an older age is actually a better predictor of entrepreneurial success, and that three other traits also correlate strongly to success: strong fluid intelligence, high openness, and moderate agreeableness. Let’s dive in deeper on the four key traits of entrepreneurial success:

Older age has shown in the data to correlate with more successful entrepreneurs up to the age of 40, after which it has limited or no impact. Our take: Older individuals have generally completed more complex projects—from buying a house to raising a family. In addition, older people have developed greater vocational skills than their younger counterparts in many, but not all, cases. We theorize that the combination of successful project completion skills with real world experience helps older entrepreneurs identify and address more realistic business opportunities.

1. Fluid intelligence is a largely genetic trait that measures one’s ability to quickly learn a rule set and apply the learned logic to solve problems. It can also be referred to as abstract thinking, and fluid intelligence declines with age. Our take: Entrepreneurs are constantly faced with new problems that need to be understood and solved within minutes—from sudden resignations to service outages. It makes sense that they require fluid intelligence to succeed.
2. Openness is a Big Five personality trait that measures one’s ability to see and appreciate the world around them. It is often synonymous with curiosity, adventure, or cultural awareness. Our take: Entrepreneurs, particularly in fast-growth startups, need to challenge accepted norms, and be open to changes and new information that affect the success of their enterprise.
3. Agreeableness is another Big Five personality trait that measures cooperation versus antagonism. It can be synonymous with compassion, or, conversely, with suspicion. Our take: A moderate level of agreeableness correlates with the ability to stick to a chosen path despite conflicting information and naysayers, allowing an entrepreneur to persevere in the face of obstacles.

Our Methodology:
The 3,000+ tested applicants come from 17 cities across four continents worldwide, and range in age from 17 to over 60. Applicants self-select as being interested in entrepreneurship by applying to the Institute in the first place. Two times per year, the Institute expands the breadth of the test with different batteries, lasting as long as three hours, providing a greater set of data to identify new traits of success. In addition, the Institute enrolls a number of semesters per year without using the test results so that we have a control group to measure the effectiveness of the test results in admissions.

Defining Success:
Since the Institute is only 25 months old and the oldest graduates are only 18 months out of the program, there are no M&A deals or public offerings among the graduates, yet. So, the Institute uses a careful performance evaluation of founders and their companies to identify their relative “success.” Each founder is rated weekly during the program by a subset of their closest peers in their program, rated twice throughout the program by seasoned CEO Mentors, and tracked quarterly after graduation through self-reporting on key metrics, such as revenue growth and market traction, with validation of this progress by the Founder Institute itself. All of this data is collected, processed and analyzed twice per year to check, validate and change our assumptions.

Only 39 percent of applicants are under 30, and of those who graduate, 36 percent are under 30.  The average age of all graduated founders is 34.4 years old, and the performance results of graduates speak for themselves:

The Testing Results:
The admissions test itself predicts success well by factoring in age and the other traits. 53% of the time the test will predict the assessment of a founder’s success by peers and mentors within 5%. The predictions of the test are off by 20% or more in only 14% of the cases.

Conclusion:
Age is only one factor among many to predict the success of entrepreneurs, and anybody at any age can break any molds put forward by “experts.” However, it’s clear that the stories of a few “college-dropout turned millionaire” (or billionaire) startup founders have clouded both the mass media and the tech industry from reality. We have romanticized the idea of a young founder because, well, it’s a great story, but these stories are not the norm. In the end, classic biases of gender, race, and age need to be discarded for a real science of success.

#015.1: Greylock Partners to Invest in European Startups
#015.2: Student Startup: Loveskiing
#015.3: Ten business tips for using Facebook Correctly
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#015.1: Greylock Partners to Invest in European Startups

Well known US VC house Greylock Partners is launching a brand new $160 million fund aimed at internet technology companies, with the fund being deployed between Europe and Israel. Greylock is best known for its stakes in Facebook, Groupon and LinkedIn and European investments including Wonga. Greylock’s move will be a shot in the arm for European tech companies looking for more options when raising financing.

We’ve confirmed that the fund will be run from London by Laurel Bowden, a Partner, and will cover investments from early stage and beyond.

Greylock is one of the world’s oldest venture capital funds, and has been operating in Israel since 2001. In the US Greylock invests in seed stage companies through its Greylock Discovery Fund, early stage companies through Greylock XIII and late stage companies through Greylock Growth. But this new fund will specifically target Europe and Israel.

[Update: We've now confirmed with Greylock that this is Fund II for Europe/Israel. Fund I started investing in Israel in 2006 and started investing in Europe in 2008.]

The news will be of interest to the latter, since VC fundraising has fallen off dramatically and in 2010 VCs in Israel raised no new capital. Greylock Israel has not had any large exits so far, and had to write off its investment in failed mobile company modu.

Bowden joined Greylock in 2008 and her investments at Greylock include Wonga, notonthehighstreet and Just Eat. She is also an angel investor in companies such as Hybris, Wix and Fizzback.

The future of the European startup scene looks bright!

#015.2: Student Startup: Loveskiing

Loveskiing is the brainchild of James Henderson and James Cox. Established in October 2010, Loveskiing aims to give web users ‘the place to go for all things snow!’

Loveskiing is a website based around giving snow sport enthusiasts in-depth, easy to read and interesting resort reviews, locating and reviewing the latest innovative products to hit the slopes, an interactive forum and a newly created online ski game section for all you gamers out there. Rather than having an intrinsic business plan, Loveskiing has a simple vision, to create an interactive community where users can share their love for skiing! This strategy has paid off, with Loveskiing attracting a monthly audience of 5,000 unique visitors.

Once Loveskiing had the user base we could start turning the website into a profitable business through the sale of advertising space. We allow companies to “sponsor a resort”, be a home page sponsor along with various other advertising spaces on Loveskiing. The beauty of Loveskiing is the low running costs… webhosting and our time!

The challenge

Luckily Loveskiing hasn’t faced too many challenges, this is possibly due to the website still being in its infancy. Perhaps the biggest challenge that we have faced was trying to get a high ranking on Google and have a reasonable number of views so that large transnational companies would want to work with us. Another challenge would be trying to do everything ‘by the book’, so setting up our business bank account, creating legal invoices and getting through the minefield of business jargon to register Loveskiing as a private limited company.

The solution

To use the old cliché, roll with the punches. Part of creating a new business is that it is a learning experience, there will be set backs and sometimes you will feel out of your depth but the key to success is to (sorry for the Finding Nemo quote) ‘just keep swimming’. One of the solutions we used was to surround ourselves with a wider network of contacts that we could rely on if we did need business advice. Also, it is imperative to never give up, if you don’t receive a reply at first email a different person within the organisation. If you can try to find a ‘named’ email addresses, so instead of emailing your request to info@example.com try to search for an address of someone working within the company such as s.timothy@example.com, you are much more likely to hear back and hopefully get the answer you are hoping for!

Key lesson

Perhaps the biggest lesson we have learnt is not to be afraid to go outside your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to try things, the worst that people can say is no. Another lesson is to aim big! Don’t waste time hunting small fishes when you can land a giant one (excuse the cheesy lines!). The biggest tip we can give when contacting companies is finding a named email address.

Top tip

Persistence, persistence and more persistence. Setbacks within business are inevitable, the trick to success is to keep persisting. Perhaps the best tip we have learnt is to be wary of taking advice from people who haven’t actually done it themselves.

If you would like to write for Loveskiing contact james@loveskiing.co.uk

#015.3: Ten business tips for using Facebook Correctly

Facebook has become one of the most effective digital marketing tools for brands both big and small.

But most entrepreneurs just scratch the surface of what Facebook can offer them. Buddy Media have published an awesome guide to using Facebook correctly.

Here are their top ten tips for making sure your brand gets seen in people’s newsfeeds:

1. Ask questions
This is one of the easiest ways of engaging with people on Facebook: ask questions. People love to talk about themselves and offer their thoughts – and the more comments and “Likes” you get, the better your post will do.

Keywords such as “where”, “when”, “would and “should” see the highest number of engagement on Facebook. “Would”, in particular, drives spikes in “Likes” due to fans using “Like” as a way of voting “yes” on a question.

2. Post games and trivia
Incorporating games and trivia on Facebook also drives engagement. Facebook users like to show off their knowledge, and trivia is a great way to encourage engagement with your brand.

If you start posting trivia or games on a recurring schedule, your fans will know when to check their news feeds or your wall for the content they want to see.

3. Interact and engage
When people write comments on your posts or wall, you should contribute to the discussion to maintain user engagement. The longer a thread is, the higher it will rank in your fans’ Facebook news feeds.

But beware of engaging with so-called trolls – do you want to put out the fire, or fan the flames? People love to see how brands interact with consumers, so regardless of whether or not the content posted to the news feed is positive, basic curiosity will draw users to your posts.

4. Incorporate wall sapplets
Instead of just posting items with text, vary the material and incorporate interactive components (known as sapplets).

This could include polls or coupons, which will prompt your fans to engage with your status updates directly in the news feed, beyond standard “Likes” and comments.

5. Incorporate relevant photos
Rather than just telling your fans about your products and services, why not show them?

Relevant photos will attract people to your posts – people aren’t generally interested in reading through long text updates, but they love immediate content such as photos. Facebook has assigned a higher weight value to photos than to other types of content, so photos will keep you in people’s news feeds.

Why not post images to introduce fans to your company’s employees, or show them how things work behind the scenes? Photos are also a great way to get people excited about new products.

6. Relate to current events
We’re not suggesting you do a Kenneth Cole and offend your fans, but as a brand, it’s really important for you to relate your content to current events.

You can post questions or state your stance on pertinent issues (but again, be careful!), as this could encourage fans to engage with you and get a discussion going. Ask people what they think about breaking news, celebrity gossip, sports or other topics – this could lead to more traffic.

Research by Buddy Media shows that engagement rates peak for holiday posts, such as Valentine’s Day an St Patrick’s Day – so why not wish your fans well during the holidays?

7. Incorporate videos
Everyone loves interactive content – and video is one of the best strategies a brand can use to draw attention. Videos can be played within the news feed, so users aren’t redirected away when they start playing a clip.

Be sure to keep your videos short (to keep people’s attention) and set expectations within the text to tell your fans what the clip is all about.

For example, you could use videos to show people how to best use your products/services – why not offer them a tutorial?

8. Post content for time-sensitive campaigns
“Deal ends today!”, “Sale on now!”, “Don’t miss out!”.

Facebook is a great platform for publishing time-sensitive content. Timing and relevancy are important to get right if you want to drive traffic.

If you’re working on a long campaign, why not build anticipation for the promo in advance, counting down the days to go? This will encourage people to express their excitement within the news feed – and every time someone “Likes” or comments on a piece of content, it will boost your ranking on Facebook’s news feed.

9. Include links within posts
As a tool for sharing and spreading information, Facebook is an obvious place for you to post links.

Encourage people to interact with your brand by posting links that users will find valuable or interesting. This will encourage people to share the link with their friends, spreading your brand and driving engagement.

10. Be explicit in your posts
Not explicit as in XXX content or swearing, explicit by telling people exactly what you want them to do. In many cases, publishing content that you think might generate traffic isn’t always enough to get the results you want. Instead, be explicit and explain to your users exactly what action you want them to take.

SStartup Coda

#15 “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

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About SStartup

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Our newsletter is compiled in a collaborative fashion by as many writers, researchers and industry pundits as we can get our hands on. Our conflicts are many, but our insights and facts are always well-researched, honest and to the point. We’re blunt to a fault–by design. If you would like to write for SStartup email oli@sstartup.com.