Study of VC backed ventures that failed: 65% failed because of the "people side"

Noam has been collecting data from founders for years and has statistics on venture stability based on choices made at each stage.

Choices:

• Whether to found the business: alone, with friends or with strangers
• How to split equity: equal or unequal
• How to fund: bootstrap or with outside investment
• Investment: Smart money vs. Dumb money
• When to replace the Founder-CEO

Choices break down to whether you want to be Rich (small piece of bigger pie) or King (in control of the business).

Data shows that business founded with friends are less stable then those founded with strangers.

Companies that feplate the founder-CEO earlier are more stable

Noam Wasserman's blog [http://founderresearch.blogspot.com/]