A lot of early stage investors are obsessed with credentials. I think that’s a big mistake.
There’s nothing wrong with going to Harvard or working at Google. But when you look at the best founders, they don’t look like that.
Instead, you see people with a strong entrepreneurial bent that rose from obscurity.
Let’s look at the three most valuable companies to come out of the last cycle: Uber, Airbnb, and ByteDance. What can we learn from these special founders?
Travis Kalanick
Travis Kalanick of Uber definitely didn’t have a Big Tech pedigree. In fact, his first startup got him sued for $250 billion — nice, huh?
His next startup, Red Swoosh, gave him a modest exit and a little cash to play with. But it wasn’t until his third that he hit the big time.
Travis did go to a good school, UCLA. But of course, that’s not Stanford or MIT (nor is my alma mater, Wisconsin).
What stands out about Travis isn’t any particular line on his resume. It’s his persistent desire to create and sell, all the way back to when he sold pancake breakfasts for the YMCA as a kid.
Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia
Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were even more obscure than Travis.
Brian called his team the “bad news bears of Silicon Valley.” Hardly anyone wanted to meet with them. They were lucky if they could get an e-mail returned.
And no wonder! They came out of the Rhode Island School of Design, not Stanford CS. Neither had ever worked in tech in any capacity — they were industrial designers.
But to one man who was paying close attention, there was a tell. That man was Paul Graham.
Brian and Joe had sold Obama and McCain themed cereal during the 2008 election. It gave them just enough money to keep the company alive.
These were founders with a burning desire to succeed. How many people would have gone to these lengths to keep a company going?
PG made the bet.
Zhang Yiming
Not a lot of people in America have heard of Zhang Yiming. Until this morning, I hadn’t either!
Yiming is the founder of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. Of all the companies we’re looking at today, ByteDance is by far the most valuable — $268 billion.
Like Travis, Brian and Joe, Yiming didn’t come from Big Tech.
Nor did he go to Harvard, MIT, or even Tsinghua. Instead, he studied at the more modest Nankai University in Tianjin.
Yiming worked for a travel startup called Kuxun out of school. Later, he founded a property search site called 99fang.com.
He quit after a couple of years and founded his next company: ByteDance.
Yiming didn’t have much of a pedigree. But like the other founders we’ve looked at today, he had a strong entrepreneurial bent.
He went to a startup after college, not a major company. And soon, he was off on his own starting businesses.
Wrap-Up
Among accelerators and early stage investors, the focus on pedigree seems to get stronger every day.
Investors are looking for a shortcut. An easy way to tell who will succeed.
But they’re focused on the wrong things.
If we look at the biggest successes in tech, they’re short on pedigree. But they’re long on entrepreneurial nerve.
So I don’t look for an Ivy degree or a track record at Facebook. Instead, I want to know what you’ve started, and how many times you’ve failed.
I’ll take a gritty entrepreneur over a gleaming resume any day.
What do you look for in founders?
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe for more like this!
More on tech:
Meet My Latest Investment: North
My Ten Year Angel Investing Plan
Save Money on Stuff I Use:
This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 with great returns.
More on Fundrise in this post.
If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get $100 in free bonus shares!
I’ve used Misfits for years, and it never disappoints! Every fruit and vegetable is organic, super fresh, and packed with flavor!
I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.
Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $15 on your first order.
Tremendous 
Leave a comment