0 Startups
Based on our academic study analysing over 21,000 real startups from Crunchbase, uncovering patterns between founder personality and startup outcomes.
Research impact
0Our paper has been downloaded over 120 thousand times.
0 Dimensions
Founder traits were measured across 30 behavioural dimensions, capturing how founders think, decide, and lead under pressure.
0 Personalities
The research reveals six distinct founder personality types, each representing a different, valid path to entrepreneurial success.
The research behind the Founder Personality Quiz featured in:
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University of Oxford research
What you gain from knowing your founder personality.
The Founder Personality Quiz helps you see how you lead, how you decide, and where you fit best as a founder.
What we found about founders and startup success.
- Personality data alone distinguished entrepreneurs from employees with 82.5% accuracy in our paper’s classifier.
- The study defines startup success using later outcomes such as being acquired, acquiring another company, or going public.
- Founder personality patterns also correlate with startup roles, with some types appearing more often in CEO, COO, CTO, product, and creative roles.
- The paper identifies six founder types: Accomplishers, Engineers, Leaders, Developers, Operators, and Fighters.
Want the detail behind the six founder types? Explore the personality profiles
Founder fit
See whether the founder role fits you
See how your natural traits line up with the day-to-day reality of building a company.
Useful if you are deciding whether to start, join, or lead a venture.
Your result
Learn which founder personality you are
Get a clear result that shows how you make decisions, lead, and work with other people.
This result gives you a practical starting point for how you build and who you are most likely to succeed with.
Oxford research
Use a quiz grounded in University of Oxford research
The Founder Personality Quiz builds on research that links founder personality patterns to startup outcomes.
The research covers 21,000 startups, 30 dimensions, and 6 founder personalities.
What to do next
Turn your result into better choices
Use your result to think about roles, co-founders, team fit, and the way you lead under pressure.
This insight helps you make better choices before small gaps turn into bigger problems.
Why founder personality matters
Our paper shows that founder personality matters for startup success.
The study looks at 21,187 startups and finds that founder traits are a meaningful part of the success story. It also shows that the mix of personalities in a team matters, not just the traits of one founder alone.
There is no single perfect founder type
The research does not find one ideal founder personality. It finds six distinct founder personality types, each with a different path to success.
Some traits show up more often
Successful founders more often score high on adventurousness, activity, and the drive to start new things. They also tend to be more comfortable standing out.
Diverse teams do better
Our paper finds that startups with larger and more personality-diverse founder teams have better odds of success than less varied teams.
Based on our publication
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The Founder Personality Quiz is built on validated personality research. Our questions are adapted from established psychological frameworks.
Read the research paper →