Startup Success Story: passion and perseverance

Across Europe, the perceptions shared about startups are their importance for economic growth and their ability to deliver innovative ideas.  According to European startup report 2018, there are significant differences between startups and small and medium enterprises (SME).

Unlike SME, startup may have a large number of employees, but a low percentage of turnover. Furthermore, the initial capital is commonly much higher (sometimes millions) for a startup than for an SME and support come from different sources: Business Angel (29.0%), Venture Capital (26.3%), or Crowd Investor (18.1%).

And what about the founder? It's seems that startup founders have some characteristics in common:

• age - about 35 years old when founding the business
• gender - 82% of founders are male
• education - about 84% holds a university degree
• aim to scale - founders are always looking for self-fulfillment (79%) and independence (62%)
• innovation - founders identified a market opportunity for the creation of a new business

So what’s the secret recipe for sustainable start-up success?

Startup Success Stories

When looking at successful entrepreneurs, they all showed the capability to stick to their vision and having new ideas. For example, entrepreneur Sophia Amoruso start solding vintage clothes on Ebay which led to the foundation of the fashion sales platform, Nasty Gal. After the bankruptcy of the company, however, she started Girlboss Media, producing a Netflix series about her early days in the vintage fashion industry.

Perseverance and passion

Psychologist Angela Duckworth studied high school students and military cadets to try to predict their professional success. She founds that talent or intelligence are not the decisive factors for success, but the combination of perseverance and passion. Gritty people are resilient, hardworking and driven by the strong desire to improve.

The Green Alley Award will present six gritty and passionate finalists at this year’s awards ceremony in Berlin on Thursday 17th October.