5 Essential Traits of Successful Startups

I’ve been at or around startups my whole career. I began as a data scientist at an adtech startup, then I moved on to build a data science team at a mobile payments company before starting and raising capital for my own adtech business. Working at a startup is a time warp. I learned more in a year as a startup founder than I did in my 20+ years in school. And like many people’s experiences at early stage startups, most of those lessons learned were what not to do. After my startup was acquired, I joined HearstLab, one of my investors that focuses on investing in and supporting women-led tech startups.

I now co-lead HearstLab and have helped evaluate over 7,000 startups since 2016. In that time, we have invested tens of millions of dollars in over 70 women-led startups, which have collectively tripled their valuation in the last year alone. They are now worth ~$2.5B.

From my time with dozens of startups as an investor, a founder and a startup employee, I’ve seen that there are commonalities that set the most successful startups apart from those that struggle to thrive. I’ve grouped these trends into 5 key traits:

1. A founder with strong skills in sales: As a founder, you’re constantly selling your company — to potential clients, to investors, and to future employees. Startups with founders that are natural sellers are able to raise faster, hire better and sell bigger — three critical components to growing a business.

2. Founders that are optimists, yet realists: Learning how to move on from failure while still being open to feedback is a difficult balance. It’s easy to wallow in the barrage of “no”s that come your way (and they will) or explain away every failure. Those who excel are those that can let things go while still letting things in.

3. A product that’s a must-have, not a nice to have: It’s really, really tough to create a product that’s a must-have. When we see a startup that has zero or near-zero churn and is also experiencing organic growth, we know the founder is on to something special.

4. A great network: I once thought “networking” was a dirty word. I’ve since figured out that’s only true if you’re doing it wrong. The founders that have genuine, ongoing connections with former colleagues, classmates, investors, and advisors are able to leverage their network as an incredible resource. Again, hiring, fundraising, and sales are all easier with a solid network of people that you’ve supported, and who are happy to support you.

5. Strong team culture: I’ve asked many of our most successful founders what they wish they would’ve done differently at the beginning. The most common answer? Build an intentional and meaningful company culture. The companies that hired with their core values in mind from day one more often escape many of the growing pains other companies experience, including high turnover and employee burnout.

While tech startups can’t exist without tech, they can’t be successful without great founders. Of the 5 key traits above, notice that only one is about the product. The other four are about the founders. So whether you’re looking to join a startup as an employee or an investor evaluating a prospective startup, ask yourself first and foremost: is this a founder I believe in? And if you’re interested in starting your own business, take an honest assessment of where you need to grow and where a co-founder might complement your skills. In the end, the journey to a startup’s success is driven by its leaders.

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More about Lisa Burton, VP of HearstLab
Lisa holds a Ph.D. and master's degree (S.M.) from MIT and B.S. from Duke, all in Mechanical Engineering. Beyond her day job at HearstLab, Lisa is an Advisory Board Member of Duke University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and serves on the NYU Innovation Fund’s Investment Review Board. Lisa has received a number of awards recognizing her work in engineering and entrepreneurship including the ASME Kate Gleason Award for distinguished female leaders, the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering’s Distinguished Young Alumnus Award, and the MIT Luis de Florez Award for Outstanding Ingenuity and Creativity.

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