There has been a lot of research on factors that help to explain why some start-ups become
successful and their founders rich and on the other hand why other start-ups fail terribly. Of
course starting up an enterprise is a complex activity dependent on institutional regulations
competitors market developments and the simple recognition of the right opportunities at the
right time. We know all of this but still cannot accurately predict our chances of being
successful as entrepreneur. There are some methods venture capitalists use such as evaluating
start-up teams and studying business plans. However even after doing this the chance of
making a correct prediction is still lower than throwing a coin. Research has never been able
to explain much of this complexity but there are at least three factors that have repeatedly
turned up when determining success and failure in the last few years. The first of these
factors is a result of our tremendous technological development in the past few decades but
particularly in the most recent. In nearly all young enterprises the utilization of social
media and social networks has become a vital factor for survival and success. Many research
results over the last few years have yielded the conclusion that social media are by far the
most important platform for marketing products and services. To put this more scientifically
the diffusion of innovation is increasingly interlinked with social media. In addition the
recognition and creation of opportunities also increasingly requires social media platforms.
However this does not mean one should operate only online investing all of his time and
energy to communicating in social networks. The second factor concerns something that is quite
obvious: money. Since the vast majority of start-ups do not have their own money or the ability
to easily get a loan obtaining financial resources is often a major problem. There are
different ways to raise some money: One can ask friends and family fool others or even rob
banks but often the only course of action is to be financed by venture capital. But how do
start-ups find the right venture capital investor and how much does this investor intervene in
the start-up s management? All this can be answered by looking at the social networks of
venture capitalists and young enterprises. The third factor depends partially on the first.
Before the development of online social media founders may have been described as extroverted
aggressive and emotionally stable. However within social media these characteristics often
disappear to a certain degree creating a sort of anonymity. If this is correct we must
rethink the search for personnel the composition of a start-up s team and even the evaluation
of start-ups in pitches. Technical development has indeed made it possible for introverted
nerds to be more successful than extroverted offliners. Historically what are considered
successful characteristics has changed several times and it is important to know whether the
current technological development will again trigger such changes. This book presented in
three essays gathers up the threads and attempts to shed light on all three factors. As you
will read spending more time and energy in online activities does not make you more successful
as entrepreneur. However spending no time at all also does not make you more successful
spending energy and time wisely is the key. Moreover networking has become a buzzword but it
would appear nobody actually knows how to do this except by distributing as many business
cards as possible or piling up more and more friends on social networks. This book shows how
networks of investors and start-ups are structured towards success. And finally though it may
be hard to believe we have broken down the personality traits of successful entrepreneurs.
This book is one of the first to identify and explain this twist.
