AP Photo/Paul Sancya

AP Photo/Paul Sancya

Picking a team to bet on is a tough one. I don’t believe ideas really matter, if you have one that you think is going to be the next best thing to sliced bread, believe me you are not the only one. The more and more I think about Venture Investing which falls in the low data, no metrics decision making category, the one true qualifier is the team and the entrepreneur. I continue to believe that I know very little about investing in ventures and I got lucky with our last exit. But I can tell you that there is a simpler way to increase your odds of success… you just need to look for Grit. Here is a TED talk by Angela Lee Duckworth about that, I think it really shows why this quality is a simpler measure of success. If you are a parent, if you can teach one thing to your child, teach her/him Grit.

I am not as smart as Angela Lee, I don’t know if intelligence is a true qualifier but I  use a simpler heuristic, has the entrepreneur run a marathon or done any deed that challenges his/her mental capacity to bear pain… because end of the day being a entrepreneur is about absorbing the pain and continue to move forward. It is hard, it is super tiring but in the end it is worth it. I am starting to use this to build my team at GreenQloud… it is the true measure of someone who will stick around and not give up. This is also one of the main reasons why I believe Women are fantastic entrepreneurs, I wish we had more of them building companies. That is one of the main reason why I want more women in technology and in leadership roles. I believe strongly that women make excellent leaders because they care, they nurture and they can bear unimaginable pain.

Related articles