Life in Balance: Amit Chaudhary’s Blog
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Following are highlights from Survey and Study by Vivek Wadhwa & others: Anatomy of an Entrepreneur Part II:Making of A Successful Entrepreneur

This research is based on a survey of 549 company founders in a variety of industries, including aerospace and defense, computer and electronics, health care,
and services.

Entrepreneurs Obstacles from their past, Time and effort required, capital/financing, and experience in running a business
We asked company founders to rank the challenges they faced in starting their businesses.

• 61 percent said amount of time and effort required was a challenge

• 52 percent said lack of available capital/financing was a challenge

• 52 percent said lack of prior experience in running a business was a challenge

Entrepreneurs Obstacles for others, Lack of willingness to take risks, Time and effort required, Raising capital, Business management skills and Family or financial pressure

• The factor most commonly ranked as important—by 98 percent—was lack of willingness or of ability to take risks, with 50 percent believing this to be an extremely important barrier to entrepreneurship. This clearly indicates that these company founders considered entrepreneurship to be a risky endeavor.

• 93 percent said that the amount of time and effort required was an important barrier.

• 91 percent said that difficulty in raising capital was an important inhibitor.

• 89 percent said business management skills, 84 percent said knowledge of how to start a business, and 83 percent said knowledge about the industry and markets were important issues.

• 73 percent believed that family or financial pressures to keep a traditional, steady job were issues.

Experience, Management, and Luck: The Keys to Success 

• 96 percent ranked prior work experience as an important success factor

Professional Networks, Education, Funding, Personal Networks: Important

• 73 percent said professional networks were important to the success of their current businesses.

Location, Investor Advice, Alumni Networks, and Regional Assistance: Not so Important 

• Entrepreneurs were almost evenly divided about the importance of the location of their businesses. 50 percent said location was important.

Using Personal Savings is the Norm, Venture Capital Comes to the Experienced, and Friends and Family are Always There

• The most significant source of funding for all businesses was company founders’ personal savings: 70 percent said they had used personal savings as a main source of funding for their first business, more than four times the number chiefly financed by any other type of funding.

Following are highlights from Survey and Study by Vivek Wadhwa & others: Anatomy of an Entrepreneur I: Family Background and Motivation

For this project, we surveyed 549 company founders in a variety of industries, including aerospace and defense, computer and electronics, health care, and
services.

Company founders tend to be middle-aged and well-educated, and did better in high school than in college

• The average and median age of company founders in our sample when they started their current companies was 40.

• 75 percent ranked their academic performance among the top 30 percent of the high school class, with a majority (52.4 percent) ranking their performance among the top 10 percent.

These entrepreneurs tend to come from middle-class or upper-lower-class backgrounds, and were better educated and more entrepreneurial than their parents 

• 71.5 percent of respondents came from middle-class backgrounds (34.6 percent upper-middle class and
36.9 percent lower-middle class). Additionally, 21.8 percent said they came from upper-lower-class families (blue-collar workers in some form of
manual labor).

Most entrepreneurs are married and have children 

• 69.9 percent of respondents indicated they were married when they launched their first business. An additional 5.2 percent were divorced, separated, or
widowed.

• 59.7 percent of respondents indicated they had at least one child when they launched their first business, and 43.5 percent had two or more
children.

• 52 percent of respondents had some interest in becoming an entrepreneur when they were in college, but 34.7 percent didn’t even think about it,
and 13.3 percent had little or no interest.

Motivations for becoming entrepreneurs: building wealth, owning a company, startup culture, and capitalizing on a business idea

Most had significant industry experience when starting their companies
• The majority of respondents (75.4 percent) had worked as employees at other companies for more than six years before launching their own companies. Nearly half (47.9 percent) launched their first companies with more than ten years of work experience.