#AIS: Pear VC's Mar Hershenson on making successful founders

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
Next up is Mar Hershenson, who's going to talk about entrepreneurship. Come on out, Mara.
Mara is going to talk about creating successful founders. Please welcome Mara.

**Mar Hershenson** (0:25)
Know the mood may be a little bearish in general. My name is Mar. I'm one of the founders of Pear VC. And I am very fortunate. I actually work with many startups. I've worked for the last decade with 100 plus startups. They're worth over $100 billion. And they all have one thing in common. When I invest, there's actually nothing. I'm the first check. There is no product. There's no customers. There's just the founders. So it is no surprise that I often wonder, are these founders born? Are my cards dealt as soon as I invest in one of these founders? Or is there anything I can do to change them? That's a big question. And I think many of you would say founders are born.
Take, for example, Palmer Lucky. He's talking tomorrow. He was a prodigy. He created the first prototype of the Oculus Rift at 17, and he sold the company to Facebook at 22 Clearly, there's something special about him.
Or Melanie Perkins. She started her first business at 14, then at 19 went on to build the largest yearbook business in Australia, and now she runs one of the most successful startups.
And then Elon Musk. I don't think I need to say anything. He's definitely someone special.
Something in his DNA, right? So you wouldn't be surprised. Many people ask me what makes a good founder, and there's a bunch of characteristics. You can Google it. People come up with a bunch of things like risk-taking, resilience, ambition, etc. And in fact, there's some research by Academia that shows that people have some innate properties. So researchers at Northeastern surveyed hundreds of entrepreneurs, and they counted that 42% of them had started a business as a kid. So actually, that's a good hint for anybody making angel investments. Maybe it's a question you can ask. Now, there's also data that shows that founders can be made.
And while there are 37% of founders, the repeat founders in companies today, 59% repeat founders are in the top unicorns. So that means at least you learn something from your first experience.
So it would be reasonable to believe that there is some relationship about, you know, what's your chances of being successful to how you're born.
However, I do believe there is some form, something you can do, right? There's some energy or some modification that would put you up in that chart. And I think the wider arrow shows that the early parts of that chart, you need a lot of effort. And in fact, this is what I've learned from being an investor. Roughly, and these are all rough numbers, out of the 10 companies we back, two will fail no matter what we do. That's just almost their destiny. And Jason wrote a blog post in 2015, so that's a long time ago, that's titled, You Don't Have What It Takes, I recommend you reading it. And basically, the summary is, some people just don't have what it takes. It would take so much effort to change them, that you might as well give up, right?
Okay, so now out of 10 companies we back, two will succeed no matter what. Us people in venture like to take credit, but truly, there's a percentage of founders that work independently of us. We backed DoorDash early on, there's a picture of their founders, and I can tell you that Tony Hsu, the CEO, would have made it with or without any of his investors.
And then there are six companies that I think we can influence, okay? There's something we can do.
And the question is, perhaps, what can you do with that 60%? How can you make them more successful? Or maybe better, if you're at the top 10%, can you accelerate their success? That's a big question. And that's what I'm really passionate about. Can you create more successful entrepreneurs?
And why is it important? Why should you care?
I think this is the right audience. You don't have to say. There are many numbers to show that having more entrepreneurs is good for the economy.
You can read them, but just more entrepreneurs means a better world.
So the question is, how can you build these entrepreneurs? Is there a magic machine where you can actually take a regular founder or a regular person and out comes a successful founder? Okay, so at the risk of being elitist, I am going to say that one of the closest machines of entrepreneurship is Stanford University.
And the numbers actually show it. 10% of unicorns have founders that attend at Stanford. And what's even more, in the All-In Summit, I actually went through all the LinkedIns, 40% of the speakers attend at Stanford. And I think all of us have started something, whether it's 538 like Nate or a venture firm or a company or multiple companies. So there's some special gene, right? And the question is, what does Stanford have that other people don't have, right? It's a higher ed institution, so for sure you're going to go and take some classes, gain some skill sets. They put you around people that are like you. And they have a brand, so you have access to capital, network, etc. Having been there though, I will tell you that the skill set doesn't quite matter as much. You can go online and learn some of that. But your peers around you and the next degree around you actually really, really matter. And in a way what these people are doing is transforming your character. And I can tell you that firsthand. Just imagine yourself, you may be a founder or an investor, I don't know. You are dropped in a world where you basically are surrounded by people that are constantly thinking about starting new companies. These are smart people. The ambition is very, very high. There is innovation almost breathing everywhere. And nerding out is very okay, right? So by doing this throughout years, you actually become one of them. And your peers are really fundamentally changing your character. You become somebody that starts to believe in themselves. You can do it.