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What qualities do you think a founder should have?

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There are founders you’d love to NOT work for. And then there are founders whose company you wouldn’t want to leave, no matter what.

A big part of that comes down to people, their values, and their character.

And often, that starts with the founder.

So what makes a great founder?

For me:

– Being ambitious and thinking big
– Being disciplined and leading by example
– Staying curious and always moving with the times – or even staying ahead of them
– Being able to inspire people around them
– Having natural authority and being more of a leader than a manager
– Making tough decisions, even under pressure
– Surrounding themselves with people who are better than them in certain areas
– Being transparent, even when things don’t go according to plan

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I think one underrated quality is emotional stability. Startups are chaotic, and founders who can stay calm, honest, and focused during tough moments usually build the strogest teams.

 Okay, this one trait I do not have at all :D

Been through a lot of Founders and CEOs and yes there is a list :D

I wouldn't leave someone no matter what if they have their heart and soul behind words rather than them being empty promises. Someone who leads by example and actions. Someone who is kind enough to understand circumstances and considers everyone working for them as humans. My POV is they have been in different positions before. They know how things work or ideally they are in a position to understand how things can be.

 I like people more when they manage to do some thing first and then talk about it. Not the opposite with the empty promises :)

Founders should be :
motivated
passionate and positive

 I sometimes lack all of 3 :D

  • money in the bank

  • rich friends

  • no distractions in life

  • good timing

  • luck

 Essentials! :D

A great founder is basically someone who can hold two opposites at the same time: big vision and daily discipline.

They think in decades, act in days and when things get messy, they don’t hide it, they simplify it and keep people moving forward.

 both are valid, but discipline is gold!

The quality I find most underrated: calibrated confidence under uncertainty. Not just "making tough decisions under pressure" (which is on Nika's list), but something more specific — knowing precisely which of your assumptions are load-bearing and which aren't, and being able to act anyway.

Coming from structured finance, this is the discipline deal work forces on you. A financial model for a large transaction has 20 sensitivity scenarios, but you still close on Monday. What you build over time isn't certainty — it's the ability to sort your unknowns into categories: risks that are hedged, residual risks you've sized and priced in, and genuine blind spots you can't quantify. Good founders have the same cognitive architecture applied to their market and product.

It prevents both failure modes: analysis paralysis (waiting for certainty that never arrives) and blind confidence (shipping without knowing which assumptions are actually load-bearing). The founders I've seen build durable things could do a real-time stress test on their own thesis and still commit. That's rarer than ambition or discipline, and harder to teach.

 This very much depends, most people do not know what to do and how to scale, but they will learn it through trying or, if not trying, hiring people with experience :)

@busmark_w_nika Totally fair — and honestly that "learn by trying or hire it" lens is what I see again and again in M&A founders too. The ones that scale aren't necessarily the smartest; they're the ones who recognize fast where their judgment ends and bring in someone whose judgment starts. The trap is when founders confuse "I figured it out" with "we figured it out as a team."

Being able to be part of the team - that was something that I experienced with my first CEO (he was the founder as well), and I genuinely enjoyed working with him. It was an amazing experience that set my expectations towards CEOs and founders in general

 We all wish to experience this, so we can pass on it further.

 hahaha, yeah, can't agree more - that's an amazing feeling and experience

I’d add emotional steadiness too — the ability to stay clear, fair, and constructive when things get messy. Ambition and vision matter a lot, but people really remember how a founder behaves under pressure. That’s often what turns a strong company into one people genuinely want to stay with. 👏

 emotional steadness and stability is something I need to learn, not gonna lie :D

 Honestly same, I think most founders learn it the hard way 😄 The goal probably isn’t to be calm all the time, but to recover faster, communicate clearly, and not let pressure leak into the team too much.

The list is really good. I think something is missing. Being okay with being wrong in front of people is key.

Great founders change their minds when they see proof. They say it loud and clear. Don't try to defend their old ideas. This founder quality affects teamwork. How fast a company adapts to problems.

Being a leader and making decisions is crucial.. If founders aren't okay with being wrong publicly, it doesn't matter. That's what matters most about founders and their leadership.

 I like founders who admit that they are not always 100% :)

Good list. I'd add that a founder should be approachable for the people in the team, even regarding things outside of work.

 How can this be handled when the team is 50+ people? Because this can apply to very small teams, I think.

 Yeah I meant this for small teams...

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