June 21, 2016

Science™ Says One Key Warning Sign of a Low-Quality Startup Is Being Named After Its Founder

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I’m reading James Surowiecki’s piece about startup companies, and couldn’t help but laugh when I got to this:

New work by the MIT economists Scott Stern and Jorge Guzman shows that in 15 U.S. states between 1988 and 2014 there was no long-term decline in the formation of what they call “high-quality” startups. Stern and Guzman have figured out the characteristics of startups that are trying to become high-growth firms, which include being chartered in Delaware, registering for patents, and not being named after the company’s founder.

Hmmm. Can we all think of an entrepreneur who (a) names all of his startup companies after himself, and (b) runs about the lowest-quality businesses imaginable? Sure we can. In fact, I’d like Stern and Guzman to rerun their correlations after removing all Trump businesses from their dataset. They might find out that he’s personally responsible for the entire effect.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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