The Anatomy of An Entrepreneur - Background and Motivation

THE ANATOMY OF AN ENTREPRENEUR AGE EDUCATION The average age of company founders when they started their current companies was 40 years old. 95% of company founders had earned bachelor's degrees, and 47% had more advanced degrees. FAMILY BACKGROUND MOTIVATION Less than 1% came from extremely rich or extremely poor family backgrounds. Motivation for becoming entrepreneurs: desire to build wealth 75% capitalizing on a business idea 68% appeal of a startup culture 66% SERIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP inability to find employment 5% The majority of entrepreneurs were serial entrepreneurs. They launched approximately 2.3 businesses on average. MARRIAGE 70% were married when they launched their first business. INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE CHILDREN 75% had worked as employees at other companies for more than 6 years before launching their own. 60% of entrepreneurs had at least one child when they launched their first business, and 44% had two or more. Source: Wadhwa et al. "The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur". 2009. Kauffman.org Created by: Return on Change Return on Change (RoC) is a crowdinvesting platform connecting high-impact startups with investors, focusing on socially innovative companies in the Tech, Life Sciences, EdTech, CleanTech, and Social Enterprise industries and striving to democratize startup finance. www.returnonchange.com @RoCSpeaks