What qualities help early-stage founders build sustainable companies?

Sam Parr

Co-Founder · Hampton

Being Opinionated

Sam Parr says being opinionated is more attractive to VCs in early-stage founders, citing knowing what they're doing and what they're saying no to.

Mike Cannon-Brookes

CEO and Co-Founder · Atlassian

Enjoyment

Mike Cannon-Brookes says enjoyment gives founders energy, arguing that if you don't enjoy creating products or services you won't be able to do it for very long, and few purely motivated by money sustain it 5-10 years.

Hala Taha

Host of Young and Profiting Podcast · Yap Media

Confidence and Humility

Hala Taha says entrepreneurs need confidence and humility together, because that coexistence is the sweet spot and having only ego or only paranoia will not work.

Mark Pincus

Founder & Chairman · Zynga

Courage

Mark Pincus says real founder mode is courage: going against everyone, including your board and team, with faith and conviction in your own instinct.

Chase Idleman

Chief Executive Officer · Arlow

Initiative

Chase Idleman says the one skill set you absolutely need is initiative, because you have to figure out which direction to go when you can do anything.

Anshu Sharma

Co-founder & CEO · Skyflow

Belief in an Important Problem

Anshu Sharma says founders need a strong belief that they are solving an important problem, because he thinks you can only build a great company by doing so.

Matthew Wilson

Co-founder and CEO · Jack and Jill

Trust Yourself

Matthew Wilson says early-stage founders should trust their gut and trust themselves more, rather than be talked out of decisions they feel are right, because they are the one person with all the context.

The answer starts at 42:00.

Stan Suchkov

CEO · Evolve

Discipline and Consistency

Stan Suchkov says early-stage founders should prioritize discipline and consistency, citing a 500 Global manager who said the firm backed a founder because he pivoted for two years and was disciplined and consistent, not for the product.

Sridhar Ramaswamy

Chief Executive Officer · Snowflake

Belief

Sridhar Ramaswamy says founders need belief, describing every startup as an act of believing and saying his biggest message is that founders must believe they can do something better.

Sasha Orloff

Member of Staff · Accrual

Show Up for Your Team

Sasha Orloff says that how you show up for your team is really important, listing it as one of the two things he has taken from his experience.

Gyve Safavi

Co-Founder & CEO · SURI

Cofounder Relationship

Gyve Safavi says founders should prioritize investing in their cofounder relationship, calling it one of the fundamental things she'd tell any business starting out, and says to figure out the dynamics between each other.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Chairman of VaynerX, CEO of VaynerMedia · Vaynerx

Patience

Gary Vaynerchuk says patience is what founders need, arguing people's biggest issue is that they don't have patience and want everything fast; he notes he started VaynerMedia at 34 with no money.

Neka Pasquale LAc MS

Founder & Chief Product Officer · Urban Remedy

Vision

Neka Pasquale LAc MS says a founder’s vision is what guides their business because they created it, and it is critically important to always hold that vision as it can easily be lost.

Alex Konrad

Founder and Editor · Upstarts Media

Decisiveness

Alex Konrad says decisiveness is the number one quality of a successful founder, since you will always have imperfect information and cannot agonize over it.

Gabrielle Marquez

Founder Solutions Lead · Finstrat Management

Respect Capital

Gabrielle Marquez says founders should respect capital, since capital is limited, accepting it is a big responsibility, and investors give it to be multiplied.