Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups

Description

Every VC wants to find the next billion dollar company to invest in, and every startup wants to become one. Ali Tamaseb set out to find patterns in the backgrounds, methods, and trajectories of these companies, gathering and analyzing 40,000 data points about the 200+ billion dollar companies and the people who founded them. And you'll be surprised by what he discovered: * Half of unicorn founders are over 35; * Most founders don't have any directly relevant work experience in the industry they're disrupting; * There's no disadvantage to being a solo founder; * Sixty percent of billion dollar companies are started by repeat entrepreneurs, many of whom already have at least one $50M+ exit under their belt; and * Over half of these companies were competing with multiple incumbents at the time of their founding. Super Founders gives readers an unprecedented look at what the data tells us about the world's most successful startups and the people who create them. A blend of data, analysis, stories based on exclusive interviews, this book is a paradigm-shifting guide for entrepreneurs and the investment community. You may look more like a Super Founder than you think!

Ali Tamaseb is a partner at DCVC, a highly reputable VC firm in Silicon Valley with over $2 billion under management and investments in over ten billion-dollar startups. He holds several leadership and board positions at companies across the U.S. and globally. Ali was an honoree of the British Alumni Award of 2018 by the British Council, and Imperial College President's Medal for Outstanding Achievement. Ali and his work has been featured in BBC, TED, Guardian, Forbes, Fortune, Inc., The Telegraph, among others, and he has given talks and appeared on panels at major events and conferences.

"Super Founders challenges founders, entrepreneurs, and investors to rethink what matters most when you're building a business. These insightful stories help break down bias along the startup journey. It's a great guide I wish I had earlier in my career."--Tony Fadell, Future Shape principal, Nest founder, iPod inventor, and iPhone co-inventor "Super Founders dissects startups from every single angle, just like the best investors do. It provides an unparalleled lens for angel investors, VCs, and startup founders to analyze startups, and includes riveting exclusive interviews for anyone interested in understanding how billion-dollar companies happen."--Keith Rabois, general partner at Founders Fund, Investor in YouTube, Airbnb, Palantir, Lyft, Yelp, and LinkedIn "Ali debunks myths and misconceptions of great founders. His work encourages us to play our own game on our way to becoming the next Super Founder."--Alfred Lin, Partner at Sequoia Capital, Investor in Airbnb, DoorDash, Houzz, and more "Conventional wisdom about what leads to startup success abounds. With a vast dataset, real rigor, and fresh insight, Tamaseb validates some truisms and debunks many others. A must-read for aspiring founders and venture investors!"--Tom Eisenmann, Harvard Business School professor and author of Why Startups Fail "It's heartening to see initiatives and studies like this. A data-driven effort to understand the success and failure of startups has been lacking and this book is doing exactly that."--Ron Conway - Founder of SV Angel, Angel Investor in Google, Facebook, Airbnb and more "This is perhaps one of the most comprehensive and well researched studies by an insightful venture capitalist ever done on startups and investments. I highly recommend it to all MBA and business students as well as everyone interested in startups and venture capital."--Ilya Strebulaev - Professor of Finance, Stanford Graduate School of Business "Ali Tamaseb offers an extraordinary look at the success and failure of startups coupled with inside stories and interviews with some of the best startup leaders. A must-read."--Eric Yuan, Founder and CEO, Zoom