Building Strong Foundations

What really separates the great founders - from how they think, to how they build? Is it vision? Team? Psychology? A chip on their shoulder? Obsession? An unshakable belief they’re meant to bend reality? The Economist asked this recently - and the findings are worth reflecting on… https://lnkd.in/e6XAuC3Q Drawing from tweet analysis to psychology literature, the piece shows there’s no single founder mould - but patterns do emerge. Great founders tend to score higher on openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion; lower on neuroticism. They have a strong internal locus of control - a belief they can shape their own destiny - and a rare appetite for risk. Most interestingly, they think like researchers - obsessing over the Hamming question: What’s the most important problem I could be working on, and why am I not? After decades building companies and backing entrepreneurs - through Founders Factory & firstminute capital - I’m often asked: what defines a great founder? Is it the clarity of a singular vision - or the alchemy of a world-class team? From what I’ve seen, it’s the curious, fast-iterating, mission-obsessed outsiders (often slightly - or majorly - unhinged) who turn difference into drive, setting the tone for high-performance cultures that attract and inspire the best. They don’t chase status - they chase impact. But here’s the perennial question: Should you go it alone, or with co-founders? The data tells an interesting story: 📈 Startups with multiple founders outperform solo-led ventures by 163% in revenue. 💰In 2024, only 17% of VC-backed startups were led by solo founders - despite 35% of new ventures being solo-led. 🚀 Founding teams of 3+ double their odds of success - thanks to diverse skills, quicker decisions, and shared resilience. Yet solo founders tend to keep their companies alive longer and deal with fewer internal conflicts. Fit matters as much as count. There’s no one-size-fits-all: extraordinary companies are built by extraordinary people - whether one obsessive founder or a complementary team on a shared mission. Sometimes, there’s real magic in visionary duos: Jobs and Wozniak, Page and Brin, Gates and Allen. But solo founders like Bezos and Jack Ma prove obsession and clarity can be enough. Of course, we’ve seen plenty of high-profile pairings unravel under pressure: think Zuckerberg and Saverin, or the bitter splits at Twitter and Snapchat. There’s no universal formula. What matters most is clarity of purpose, values alignment, ability to build strong teams, and the willingness to go deep into the trenches - together. I’ve been fortunate to have brilliant co-founders over the years - from Martha Lane at lastminute.com and Ning at MADE.COM, to henry at Founders Factory and Spencer at firstminute capital. Curious to hear: what’s shaped your founder journey most? Team chemistry, personality, timing… or the right problem?

Everyone loves a hockey-stick growth chart on Demo Day, but after investing in 400+ Y Combinator startups, I’ve learned that early traction can be misleading. Here’s why. YC backs companies at the earliest stages—often pre-product, pre-revenue, and sometimes even pre-idea. Many pivot during the program, sometimes landing on a new direction just days before Demo Day. They push hard to show traction, crafting an impressive growth chart for their deck. But while early traction proves founders can sell, it doesn’t mean they’ve found product-market fit. That journey is often much longer, with more pivots ahead. So, if traction and ideas are unreliable predictors, what is? People. The biggest factor in a startup’s success isn’t the idea—it’s the founding team. Their individual strengths matter, but even more critical is how well they work together. I’ve seen too many startups implode due to co-founder conflicts. But I’ve also seen founders who spent years pivoting before landing on a billion-dollar idea—because they stuck together. Take Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano, founders of GOAT Group (YC W11). They spent three years pivoting before they found the right idea—now valued at over $4 billion. The strongest teams often have history: they went to school together, shared an apartment, or worked side by side. That foundation helps them navigate the highs and lows of startup life. This is why when I assess early-stage investments, I care deeply about the people—their why, their ambition, and their history together. Because at the earliest stages, it’s not just about what they’re building—it’s about who’s building it. __ 𝗪𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗬 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽𝘀. 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 – 𝗗𝗠 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼. #founder #entrepreneur #startup #venturecapital #vc #ycombinator

I consider quality of founders to be #1 when considering companies to back. That said - I don’t believe there’s only one definition of a winning founder. Most think amazing founders look like this: ✅ Extroverted: Outgoing, charismatic and very visible ✅ Track record of success: Series of past wins ✅ Ivy League graduates: Elite education background ✅ Industry veterans: Deep experience from work in the same industry ✅ Young and unattached: Can dedicate every waking hour to the hustle. In my experience, I’ve also found gems that don’t fit the conventional mold: ✅ Introverted: Non-flashy, conservative with promises and very focused. ✅ Past failures taught good lessons: They recognise patterns and never make the same mistakes twice. ✅ Ordinary educational backgrounds: Street smart founders that learn and do quickly. ✅ Fresh industry entrants: Able to bring new perspectives vs the incumbents. ✅ Harnesses Commitments: Family is not a liability but extra motivation to succeed There’s no single blueprint for a great founder. Often, it’s the unexpected traits—the ones that don’t fit the traditional mold—that drive extraordinary success. Instead we look for values and traits that have proven to succeed time-and-time again: → Strong convictions, loosely held → Integrity and ethics → Indomitable desire to win and love for the game → Resilience and adaptability Among others. We’ve had the good fortune to have selected strong founders in our portfolio at Tin Men Capital . These are founders we’ve gone through various ups and downs with over the years and we’re happy to keep supporting them because exceptional individuals always find a way. Am I the only one that feels this way?

I’ve sat across hundreds of founders pitching their ideas. Some walked in with promising ideas but teams not equipped to execute. Others had strong early traction but weak fundamentals. A few had it all and those are the ones that stand out years later as resilient, scalable businesses. After three decades in banking and now as an investor in start-ups and scale-ups, I’ve learned that evaluating opportunities is both an art and a science. Based on Dr. Angela Lee's invaluable teachings during my time at Columbia Business School Executive Education School, my framework is built around the 4 Ps of investing: 👥 People This is always first. Founders and early teams make or break the business. I look for domain expertise, complementary skillsets and the “it factor” which is a combination of resilience, discipline and clarity of vision. Without that, even the best idea struggles. 🚀 Problem The size and depth of the problem being solved define the ceiling of opportunity. Is the market large and growing? Is the competitive landscape attractive? Does the business have true customer insight, not just assumptions? 📈 Progress Ideas are everywhere. Execution is rare. I look for traction, however early, whether that’s paying customers, a product roadmap that’s sensible or a business model that can scale toward profitability. 💲Price Finally, valuation and terms must align with reality. That means fair pricing, thoughtful deal structure and clarity on how capital will be deployed. A disciplined founder signals a disciplined company. In investing, this framework serves as a lens and a filter. They help me distinguish between market hype and real opportunity. At the end of the day, returns come from backing the right people, solving the right problems, at the right time and at the right price.

When performance drops, we ask: What went wrong? But we often forget to ask: Who’s struggling and why? We often talk about KPIs, targets, and quarterly goals. What we don't talk enough about is this: Every KPI has a human behind it. That human might be sleep-deprived, overwhelmed, anxious, or silently stuck in a loop of self-doubt... And you won’t always see it reflected in dashboards, but the people around them feel it. According to the MindPeers H1 2025 report: -> Attachment issues and trauma are high among women, -> Career stress and loneliness dominate male employees, -> 42% of all employees show zero physical self-care (no exercise). -> 30% of employees sleep less than 6 hours a night. These aren’t just personal health stats. They are business performance red flags. Because when the body is in survival mode, how do we expect the brain to be in strategy mode? Let’s say a colleague is battling low self-worth. Or someone is quietly dealing with grief, trauma, or anxiety. You may not notice it in their KPIs yet, but their team already feels it. Unprocessed emotions shape how people show up, how they communicate, and how they collaborate. And you don’t know if the person working at 40% capacity is actually bringing only 10% of what they’re capable of. This is why support systems whether therapy, coaching, or other tools aren’t about “fixing individuals.” They’re about building emotional infrastructure that protects #performance. And No, not everyone needs therapy. For some, it works. For others, coaching creates the breakthrough. Some find their answers in neuroscience games, journaling, or creative tools. What people need is choice, permission, and access. Because you can’t build high-performing teams if the emotional foundation is missing. You can’t coach toward goals if the person doesn’t feel safe, stable, or seen. Let’s stop treating wellbeing like a perk or a benefit. It’s the backbone of your best talent’s performance. 📈 The data is here. And the cost of ignoring it? #Attrition. #Disengagement. Lost adaptability. Untapped potential. The future of work isn’t about reacting to burnout. It’s about building humans who don’t break that easily because they have the tools, the language, and the space to process and grow. Don’t just look at performance gaps. Ask what stories are creating them. #Mindpeers #WorkplaceWellbeing #FutureOfWork #EmotionalFitness #PerformanceInfrastructure #MentalHealthAtWork

20% of adults live with chronic mental illness. That's 1 in 5 of your employees dealing with conditions like depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder. And most of our workplace mental health initiatives? They're built for crisis management, not long-term support. I just read new research from Emily Rosado-Solomon and Sherry M.B. Thatcher that challenges how we think about supporting these employees. The key insight? The coping strategies people develop during their GOOD days determine how well they navigate their hard days. What does this mean for leaders? It's not about teaching people how to "manage" their conditions. Most employees with chronic mental illness already know what they need. It's about removing the barriers that keep them from accessing it. Three practical shifts: Invest in authentic relationships. Create space for genuine workplace connections to develop. Design offices with both communal AND private spaces. Model that it's okay to talk about hobbies and life outside work. Don't force team bonding—make room for it. Strong relationships with coworkers who understand your specific work context become lifelines during difficult moments. Real flexibility matters. Not "you can work from home on Fridays" flexibility. I'm talking about the kind that lets someone attend therapy on a Tuesday at 2pm without guilt or explanation. Benefits that actually work. Robust mental health coverage isn't a perk—it's essential. Include access to diverse providers who reflect different cultural backgrounds and therapeutic approaches. This isn't just good DEI practice. It's good business. Employees with chronic mental illness bring extraordinary value to organizations. But only when we stop treating mental health support as a checkbox and start building systems that work for people's actual lives. The question isn't whether you have an EAP. It's whether you're providing the kind of ongoing support that makes crises few and far between. #DEI #MentalHealthAtWork #InclusiveLeadership #WorkplaceWellness #HRLeadership https://lnkd.in/gzn_AmxV

Great teams aren’t built on talent alone. Talent gets you speed. Culture gets you endurance. I’ve seen people with average résumés outperform “rockstars” simply because they believed in the mission, trusted their teammates, and showed up when things were tough. Startups aren’t marathons or sprints — they’re battles fought every day. And no battle is ever won alone. The truth is: A strong team carries you when you stumble. A weak team collapses the moment the leader isn’t looking. As founders, the most important product we build isn’t software, or an app, or a business model. It’s the team that makes all of it possible. Companies don’t scale. Teams do.

Everyone's racing to build AI governance. Without checking the foundation. Organizations are standing up AI governance programs and committees even though their data layer is a mess. AI governance built on a weak foundation isn't governance. It's theater. The organizations getting this right aren't starting with models or vendors.  They're starting with data, with the practices most companies built years ago. Data governance isn't a legacy IT problem.  It's the foundation every AI capability is built on. In other words, both are critical. A good way to think about it is: 👉 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲: 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗚𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗜𝗻 👉 𝗔𝗜 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲: 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗢𝘂𝘁 However, there's a lot of overlap between the two.  For example, here are 10 connections that often get overlooked: → Data quality management becomes model reliability → Lineage tracking becomes bias root-cause analysis → Access controls become ethical use boundaries → Data cataloging becomes model registry and discovery → Compliance frameworks become regulatory readiness → Data stewardship roles become model ownership → Schema standards become consistent training inputs → Versioning and change control become drift monitoring → Security and encryption become adversarial defense → Quality metrics become explainability requirements You can't build the structure without a strong foundation. The organizations struggling with AI governance aren't missing the right tools. They're missing the infrastructure that everything depends on. ♻️ Share if this resonates ➕ Follow Jason Moccia for more insights on AI and leadership. 👉 Sign up for my free newsletter to learn more: https://lnkd.in/enhk3j9c

Stop building defence startups without understanding defence markets. This may sound harsh, but it needs to be said. I meet many innovators and founders who want to “enter defence.” The ambition is there. The pitch decks are polished. But the strategy often isn’t there. Too many solutions are built with a single local market or own idea in mind. The assumption is that if something works in one country, it will naturally translate elsewhere. It rarely does. Defence markets are shaped by different doctrines, procurement systems, command structures, policies, industrial ecosystems, security requirements, and CULTURES. What resonates in one country can fall completely flat in another. Without understanding how to bridge those differences, market entry attempts almost always fall short. Another challenge is funding. Much of the funding available to early-stage defence innovators is still very local. Many investors have limited understanding of what building a defence capability for international markets actually requires. Questions often focus on familiar local startup metrics that simply do not apply. Defence is not a burger joint. It's a long game built on credibility, trust, integration, survivability in environments where failure has real consequences. Which leads to another recurring problem: positioning. “We build drones.” “We do AI.” “We provide autonomy.” That is not a capability description. Who is the operator? What mission problem are you solving? Where does the system integrate? How does it survive electronic warfare? How is it secured, governed, sustained, and supported? And most importantly: Why should anyone trust it when lives depend on it? Vagueness does not survive contact with defence reality. Commanders don't want snake oil. They want systems that work inside real operational ecosystems. That often means partnerships, integrations, logistics chains, doctrine alignment, years of credibility-building. This is where expectations frequently collide with reality. Access is not automatic. Trust is not immediate. Adoption does not happen in quarters. It takes years. What works today isn't automatically what another military is looking. Every environment has its own operational constraints, political context, integration requirements. Which means building for defence requires something many startup ecosystems underestimate: homework. Understanding the environment, the user, the system you are entering. Defence is never a one-way street. Collaboration is never a one-way street either. To receive access, insight, partnership, you also have to bring something meaningful to the table. The innovators who succeed are rarely the loudest but ones who listen first, ask the hard questions, spend time understanding operators, integration realities, mission constraints, the broader ecosystem before building the narrative. Because in defence, buzzwords don't matter. Survivability does. #DefenceInnovation #DefenceTech #NoBuzz

The phrase "Surround yourself with people who fight for you in rooms you aren't in" speaks to the importance of having a strong support system. It means cultivating relationships with people who advocate for you, defend your reputation, and champion your interests even when you're not present. This goes beyond casual friendships and delves into the realm of true loyalty and trust. Here's a deeper look: - Advocacy and Support: These individuals actively speak up for you and your accomplishments. They recommend you for opportunities, defend you against criticism, and highlight your strengths to others. They act as your ambassadors, building your reputation and opening doors for you. - Loyalty and Trust: This level of support requires deep trust and mutual respect. Knowing that someone has your back, even in your absence, fosters a sense of security and allows you to take risks and pursue your goals with greater confidence. They won't gossip about you or undermine your efforts. - Proactive Help: These individuals don't just wait for you to ask for help; they anticipate your needs and offer assistance proactively. They might connect you with valuable contacts, offer advice, or simply lend a listening ear. - Genuine Care: The motivation behind their actions is genuine care and concern for your well-being. They celebrate your successes and offer comfort during challenging times. They are invested in your growth and happiness. - Impact on Personal and Professional Life: Having this kind of support system can significantly impact both your personal and professional life. It can boost your confidence, reduce stress, and open up new opportunities. It creates a safety net that allows you to take risks and pursue your ambitions with greater courage. - Building This Network: This kind of support system doesn't appear overnight. It requires nurturing genuine connections, being a good friend and colleague yourself, and valuing loyalty and trustworthiness in others. It's about fostering relationships built on mutual respect, understanding, and a willingness to support each other. "Surround yourself with people who fight for you in rooms you aren't in" is a call to cultivate meaningful relationships with people who truly have your back. It's about building a community of support that empowers you to thrive.