🏎 I’m Julien, an ex-F1 engineer turned Angel Investor.
🏁 I bring advanced data & AI-driven strategies in crypto VC.
🟠 Subscribe to this Newsletter & learn more about this journey.
⌚️ Todays’s edition is a 5 minutes read.
🔎 The focus: founder & team due diligence.
Lap 1
Dear Superstrat3gists,
Founders are the beating heart of innovation. Identifying those with potential of massive disruption can not only lead to outsized returns for investors, but also gives a front-row seat in the race for transformative progress.
I’ve recently shared this cheat sheet on LinkedIn listing the essential predictors of founder greatness identified in some of my favourite VC literature.
Long before the expansion of web scraping & CRM tools dedicated to founder sourcing & evaluation, the topic has been extensively discussed - to a point where equal opportunity distribution often hits the wall of founder archetypes established by “blue chip” VC’s…
That’s why I thought it’d be worth highlighting again the complexity of pinpointing future rockstars in startup-world, and drawing some analogies with the essential factors behind an F1 team’s success. Grab a quick coffee & start your engine!
In the Driver’s Seat…
When the visor comes down, what are the specific traits that put a founder on the path to greatness? Some of them are listed in the infographics above: age, education, work experience or capital raised / exits achieved from previous startups…
That’s a good start, but but beyond recurrent pedigree factors, and even beyond the myth of grit & stubbornness, some interesting studies have showed that a founder’s psychology matters at much more intimate levels.
What level of risk are you ready to accept? Are you able to cope with the big emotional roller coaster of entrepreneurship? Are you confident enough in your abilities, without falling into stubborn individualism? Can you put your vision of the world on the test bench, without pivoting compulsively?
It’s also about the Team
Yet, as many fellow investors, I can’t pretend to be a psychology expert. That’s probably why identifying great founders isn't that straightforward: misdirected investments abound when VC’s overlook critical signals of potential success, or place excessive confidence in an individual’s storytelling talent.
And the list of what could possibly go wrong doesn’t stop there:
Lacking a Robust Evaluation Framework, relying on gut instincts or anecdotal evidence.
Misjudging Founder-Market Fit and the critical symbiosis of a founder's vision with industry dynamics.
Overemphasizing the Pitch Dazzle but eclipsing deeper insights into the Team Puzzle.
Effectively, beyond the man at the steering wheel, some crucial team dynamics influence a startup’s progress - and it’s not only about the casting or history in common:
Do C-level executives have enough skin in the game?
How are technical roles balanced with business & marketing positions?
Does diversity in age/academic backgrounds/professional experiences form a solid & productive fabric for innovative ideas?
Out on Track
Right, so there we are: the visor is down, engine is all fired-up, covers are off the wheels and the whole race crew is ready to respond.
As a founder, you’re the one getting out there to extract the best of the whole package: design, product, sales, marketing… it’s hammer time, but there’s no official driver manual to help you keep this thing in a straight line!
Indeed, there are some additional skills that you might have to learn along the way:
Adaptiveness (to the point where you can switch steering wheel during a pitstop :),
Scrappiness,
Agile thinking,
Reasoning from first principles,
Effective communication,
Storytelling…
Going For the Championship
… And the list goes on. As a famous British band famously put it some years ago: “Nobody said it was easy…”
Operational efficiency can put you on pole. Attracting & motivate top-tier talent can certainly win you races.
But what will win you Championships?
There’s a strong consensus - to which I adhere - that the deep understanding of the market at hand & the problem being solved is what matters.
Know your competitors, know the tracks, know the rules & keep your eyes on the prize (e.g. your customer): this will ensure strategic alignment all the way from ideation to MVP, first customer contract… and Series A!
Conclusion
As we speak, I am still developing this evaluation framework based on key personality traits, team characteristics, operational efficiency and market alignment metrics.
I am also working on integrating this approach with advanced predictive techniques, but this is only the visible part of the iceberg: what I mostly look forward to is spending more & more time with you, the architects of our 2035 future, and understanding what makes you tick!😉
Make sure to subscribe to 🟣 Purple Sector to follow along this journey. Meanwhile, I have collected for you the best links I’ve been able to find over the past couple of years on this topic - hope you enjoy exploring them as much as I did, and as usual don’t hesitate to share questions or comments here or via LinkedIn.
Until next time 👋,
Julien
📚 Additional Resource
How Earthling VC picks founders: the cockroach manifesto |
:
What we look for in founders |
:
Screening For Maniacs |
:
Priests, Prophets, Pirates, and Pedestrians |
:
The Gigascale Founder |
:
Hello Julien,
I hope this communique finds you in a moment of stillness. Have huge respect for your work.
We’ve just opened the first door of something we’ve been quietly crafting for years—
A work not meant for markets, but for reflection and memory.
Not designed to perform, but to endure.
It’s called The Silent Treasury.
A place where judgment is kept like firewood: dry, sacred, and meant for long winters.
Where trust, patience, and self-stewardship are treated as capital—more rare, perhaps, than liquidity itself.
This first piece speaks to a quiet truth we’ve long sat with:
Why many modern PE, VC, Hedge, Alt funds, SPAC, and rollups fracture before they truly root.
And what it means to build something meant to be left, not merely exited.
It’s not short. Or viral. But it’s built to last.
And if it speaks to something you’ve always known but rarely seen expressed,
then perhaps this work belongs in your world.
The publication link is enclosed, should you wish to open it.
https://helloin.substack.com/p/built-to-be-left?r=5i8pez
Warmly,
The Silent Treasury
A vault where wisdom echoes in stillness, and eternity breathes.