Do you have Entrepreneurial DNA?

By David K. Williams, CEO of Fishbowl - view the original article here, courtesy of Forbes.com

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? 

Plenty of opinions abound that if you’re not a 20-something young Turk with 100 hours a week to burn and an outsized ego, your chance at a thriving startup is gone. Then we spotted the admission test to the Founders Institute training program (www.fi.co). 

Founders Institute is the creation of serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur Adeo Ressi. In 3 years the early-stage startup accelerator has helped to launch 650 companies in 39 cities in 5 continents.

How do they know you’ll succeed? Founders Institute has been testing its applicants – 15,000 of them – since 2009, to assess which personality and aptitude traits match up with revenue growth and market success. So what kind of personality traits will mark your startup firm for success? Which will doom you to failure?

Here’s a fun tidbit for all of us “old dog” entrepreneurs: experience counts. What’s the ideal age to start a company? Thirty-four. In fact every year of age continues to increase your chance for success up to 40, but your odds don’t diminish thereafter. Let’s hear it for the world’s gray-haired entrepreneurs!

Now for the personality traits that predict your success: High fluid intelligence—not your IQ, necessarily, but your ability to apply known rules to new problems. A high degree of openness is helpful. Are you willing and able to challenge the norms? Moderate agreeableness is helpful. Can you balance cooperation and antagonism? Are you generally warm and considerate, but with the ability to be straightforward and firm when needs be? The best founders exhibit these flexible traits.

What are the death knell traits? Not surprisingly, they are:

Excuse making

Emotional instability

Narcissism

Deceit

Predatory aggressiveness

There are always exceptions. But the traits you see below have proven to be the statistical norm. To test your own aptitude, check the full list of traits in the following infographic, or pay a visit to Founder Institute at www.fi.co. The organization has scheduled 20 events in 2013. Enjoy!

Additional reporting for this article provided by Fishbowl President Mary Michelle Scott.