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Look for determination in founders
The test is a picture. Imagine a founder trying to get a startup going while obstacles keep appearing in their path, and ask whether they drive through each one and keep going.
Steve Jobs was convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful ones is pure perseverance. The best founders do not stop. They are relentless, unemotional about their own ideas, and willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.
A startup is not a part-time job. It is not a 40-hour-per-week job, and it is not even a 60-hour job. It is an all-consuming obsession.
Can perseverance actually be measured?
Psychologist Angela Duckworth built the Grit Scale, a self-report questionnaire that rates perseverance of effort and consistency of interest. Her 2007 paper with colleagues applied it to cadets at West Point. Grit scores predicted which cadets completed the academy's demanding first summer, Beast Barracks, better than the school's own Whole Candidate Score. The original scale had 12 items, and a shorter 8-item version followed.
Why does obstacle after obstacle define startups?
New businesses face a steady flow of setbacks because they have no established customers, processes, or reputation to fall back on. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks business survival and reports that roughly one in five new establishments closes within a year. About half are gone within five years. Those figures come from the agency's Business Employment Dynamics data.
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