Naval Ravikant on the “Single-Most Important Indicator of an Entrepreneur’s Success”

Naval Ravikant admits that predicting which startups will succeed is extremely difficult—only 1 out of 10 of his angel investments succeed—but he has noticed a common trait among many of the great companies:

“The founders are in it for the long haul. And you can see this very early on. They’re extremely deliberate about all kinds of small decisions—things you might think don’t matter. What you realize is that it’s their nature to obsess over these details because they see themselves as laying the bricks and foundation of a skyscraper.”

He contrasts this with entrepreneurs who are more careless early on:

“The people who are flippant about things… they’re often signaling to you that they’ll sell the company the first chance they get, or that when it looks like they’re going to run out of cash, they’ll shut it down.”

He continues:

“So, I think that long-term mentality is probably the single-most important indicator of an entrepreneur’s success. But it’s by no means the only factor. It’s a very competitive environment. Most startups fail. So, you just have to stick with it.”