Founder’s personality as a key factor for startup sustainability

Nikolaos Takas (), Georgios Liapis (), Konstantinos Moutsianas (), Eleftherios Kouloumpris (), Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos (), Ioannis Vlahavas () and Dimitrios Kousenidis ()
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Nikolaos Takas: Thermi Investment Group
Georgios Liapis: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Informatics
Konstantinos Moutsianas: American College of Thessaloniki, Division of Business Studies
Eleftherios Kouloumpris: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Informatics
Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos: Harokopio University of Athens, Department of Informatics and Telematics
Ioannis Vlahavas: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Informatics
Dimitrios Kousenidis: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Economics

Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 2025, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract The startup ecosystem is evolving and new businesses are attempting to use modern technology to develop novel products. The companies that assist them, such as venture capitalists, angel investors and accelerators/incubators, look for the best investment opportunities with the highest potential returns. Therefore, despite their limited expertise, they attempt to analyze a large amount of data from these startups in order to evaluate them. Even though investors acknowledge that the team is a key component, they often undervalue the founding team’s crucial personality traits or use empirical assessment methods for evaluating the startup. In this paper, we present how individual founder’s personality assessment and, by extension, their teams’, produced by an AI-powered serious game affect the performance of a novel AI-based startup sustainability forecasting system. The initial findings show that the system’s forecasting capabilities can be enhanced by personality data, providing a more comprehensive picture of startup potential. Beyond technical performance, our approach emphasizes the importance of incorporating human factors into the assessment of entrepreneurs. It also creates new avenues for policymakers, investors and accelerators to make well-informed, data-driven decisions about the support of early stage companies.

Keywords: Startup; Sustainability; Forecasting; Artificial intelligence; Serious game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s40497-025-00475-y

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