The Personalities, Motivations, and Habits of College Entrepreneurs
By: Dana Iverson (Princeton University) and Trinity Gaw Donohugh (Stanford University)
Originally published here with the University Business Institute.
Introduction
Academics have long debated the existence of an “entrepreneurial personality” and whether it meaningfully contributes to our understanding of entrepreneurial behavior. Our research is not an attempt to answer this question, but instead to understand who identifies as an entrepreneur and how entrepreneurship is perceived among the college-age demographic. While the entrepreneurial motivations of college students have been studied previously, we specifically examine how college entrepreneurs differ from their classmates and engage in a broad range of entrepreneurial activities.
In this article, we sought to answer the research questions:
- How do the personality traits, behaviors, and habits of college entrepreneurs differ from their peers?
- What factors motivate college students to become entrepreneurs?
- What do college students actually consider to be entrepreneurial behavior?
Methodology
Our group used a snowball sampling method to distribute a survey across top U.S. universities. The survey contained a variant of the Big Five Personality Test, in addition to two dozen original questions developed by our team and requests for demographic information. In total, we received 160 respondents with the majority of respondents coming from the University of Chicago, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania. We used linear regressions to test for correlations between entrepreneurial activity and personality, behavior, and preference variables, controlling for age, race, gender, and university attended. Then, in order to oversample entrepreneurs, our group collected survey responses from entrepreneurs at other universities. These results were utilized to better characterize college entrepreneurs, but were not employed in any direct comparison with our general sample to avoid potential bias. In total, we surveyed 65 self-identified college founders and an additional 27 students with some demonstrated interest in entrepreneurship.
Key Findings
- More than 1/3 of college entrepreneurs start their first venture prior to entering high school. The college entrepreneurs we surveyed, many as young as 18-years-old, had long-established histories of business ownership. 50% of college founders had operated a business prior to beginning college and more than 10% did so as early as primary school.
- Respondents with entrepreneurs in their families are no more likely to become entrepreneurs than those without. Although college founders begin their journeys early in life, having an entrepreneurial family member had no apparent effect on a student’s likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur.
- College entrepreneurs at top schools are motivated by financial gain, social impact, and leadership alike. Our research finds that there was no one motivation shared among college entrepreneurs. However, college entrepreneurs ranked themselves as significantly more motivated than their peers across all three categories.
- 2 in 3 college entrepreneurs prefer team-based work, whereas the majority of top university students prefer solo-work. Only 25% of college students uninterested in entrepreneurship preferred doing team-based work, compared to 40% of their entrepreneurial classmates. This likely contributes to entrepreneurial disposition, as most businesses are team-based endeavors.
- Women and men view the concept and definition of entrepreneurship differently. Our survey found that, at top universities, college-aged women discount themselves as entrepreneurs 3X more often than men. We estimate that women may view entrepreneurship in a narrower context, potentially contributing to lower rates of starting businesses as previous research has established.
- College entrepreneurs are overwhelmingly more comfortable taking risks and facing challenges. Nearly 80% of college startup founders at top universities viewed themselves as “comfortable taking risks,” compared to 45% of their peers. These college entrepreneurs were also about 2.5X more likely to rate themselves as highly self-sufficient.
- College entrepreneurs at top universities are significantly more extroverted and idea-focused than peers with low entrepreneurial interest. Relative to the dataset average, respondents who founded a startup had average scores that were nearly a full standard deviation above the mean for extroversion and imagination. Unsurprisingly, top university students in general appraised themselves as being more extroverted and imaginative than general samples have.
The challenge of defining entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship does not have one definition. For some, “entrepreneur” conjures up images of tech executives or smarmy salespeople, whereas others think of a family-run bakery or non-profit. In this report, we use the broadest definition of entrepreneurial activity possible, which includes any venture from a side-project to a billion-dollar business.
Young people engage in entrepreneurship differently than most adults. We see a wider variety of small businesses, non-profits and social ventures among college students, particularly among women. Young people are at a different stage of their lives than older adults and are more capable of exploring entrepreneurial activities without them interfering with other responsibilities.
When did college entrepreneurs get their start?
The majority of college entrepreneurs started their first business before entering college. Of the 102 respondents who reported launching a small business, startup, side hustle, or nonprofit at some point in their life, roughly 33% of respondents launched their first business between the ages of 5 and 13 years old.
Note: The above responses were gathered from our sample of all self-identified college entrepreneurs at both top universities and other schools across the US. We assume this data is roughly representative of college entrepreneurs.
Views of entrepreneurship by gender
Not all college entrepreneurs label themselves as entrepreneurs — particularly women. Our research finds what appears to be a large disconnect between different genders’ characterization of “entrepreneurial” behavior.
Our survey data reveals this discrepancy in two ways:
- 30% of women self-reported having an entrepreneur in their direct family, compared to 55% of men. Statistically, gender should have no impact on whether a respondent had an entrepreneurial family member. This non-null result likely reveals that female and male respondents considered the question differently from one another.
2. 70% of respondents who reported launching a startup, small business, side hustle, or nonprofit — but did not identify themselves as entrepreneurs — were female.
Women play a substantial role in entrepreneurship worldwide. However, prior literature has established that women are more likely than men to limit their career choices due to lack of confidence, specifically avoiding entrepreneurial activities. We found that college-aged women often do not perceive themselves as entrepreneurial — even when they have entrepreneurial talent. Unfortunately, this might suggest that some entrepreneurial women do not identify entrepreneurship as a potential career option, resulting in lower levels of full-time entrepreneurial activity following college.
Personality differences
We administered a variant of the Big 5 Personality Test developed by psychologist RL Goldberg. This 50-question test evaluates respondents on their levels of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and imagination on a scale of 1 to 5. Our research finds that college entrepreneurs identified themselves as significantly more extroverted and imaginative than their peers. Relative to the dataset average, college students who founded a startup were nearly one full standard deviation above the mean in terms of their extroversion and imagination scores.
Extroversion — Based on RL Goldberg’s definition of extroversion, college entrepreneurs are more willing to meet new people, be the center of attention, and socialize with everyone at parties. Our survey also found that college entrepreneurs are more open to group-based work, which suggests a willingness to assemble teams may incline students towards participation in entrepreneurial activities.
Imagination — The average imagination score for the Big Five Personality Test is 2.6, typically the lowest scoring variable among respondents. With an average imagination score approaching 3.8, students at top universities, and college entrepreneurs in particular, identify themselves as surrounded by ideas and thinking in the abstract. Notably, college entrepreneurs had a significantly higher propensity than other top university students to appraise their own ideas as good (59% versus 88%) — likely why these individuals elected to start their own ventures.
Risk tolerance
Self-reporting can only tell us so much about whether college entrepreneurs are genuinely more risk-tolerant or self-sufficient. However, our survey shows that college entrepreneurs at top universities at least believe themselves to be higher-performing, more comfortable taking risks, and more self-sufficient than their peers.
Independence — College entrepreneurs are generally students who see themselves as self-starters, free from outside control, and not dependent on another’s authority. Our survey data showed that college entrepreneurs are on average 68% more likely to see themselves as highly independent. Though successful entrepreneurship depends on teamwork, creating a new organization outside of an existing institution requires the ability to craft an independent vision. Entrepreneurs must have confidence in their individual capabilities, even before team formation, at the early stages.
Risk Tolerance — College entrepreneurs at top universities were almost 2X more likely to describe themselves as comfortable taking risks than their peers were. Notably, college students who were involved with startups but had not founded one did not reveal any higher propensity for risk than students with no interest in entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurial motivations
College entrepreneurs do not have one single motivation, according to self-reported data. They aren’t more or less motivated by money, the opportunity to be a leader, or promoting social good. They are just plain motivated.
We surveyed motivation across three dimensions and levels for each rose at similar levels from one end of the entrepreneurial spectrum to the other. The one constant appears to be that a larger majority of college entrepreneurs appraised themselves as highly motivated in comparison with their peers. Indeed, it seems logical that higher levels of entrepreneurial behavior would occur in those with higher levels of motivation, although college entrepreneurs are not guided by one desire over another.
Teamwork
College entrepreneurs expressed different working style preferences than other top university students. Non-entrepreneurs prefer solo work 2-to-1, whereas college entrepreneurs prefer team-based work more than 3-to-1.
Two overlapping theories emerge as a consequence of this finding:
- College entrepreneurs primarily considered their team-based experiences in entrepreneurial work when answering this question, whereas non-entrepreneurs primarily considered their experience with team-based school projects.
- College entrepreneurs are more likely to prefer team-based work over solo work than non-entrepreneurial college students, perhaps making them more suited to enjoy working on a startup team.
Nonetheless, because most entrepreneurial endeavors require recruiting and working with a team, an aptitude for team-based work aligns with the entrepreneurial disposition.
Conclusion
College entrepreneurs are a high-potential demographic of entrepreneurs. They identify with the spirit of entrepreneurial leadership, while some, particularly women, challenge its definition. There are still several remaining areas of exploration. Because college students are at the earliest stages of entrepreneurship and have limited track records, we narrowed the scope of our study to specifically look at the commonalities among students who participate–not necessarily succeed–in entrepreneurial activity. Future studies could correlate these characteristics with performance and likelihood of success as an entrepreneur, as well as look at a broader, more diverse sample representing different universities and geographic regions.
About the University Business Institute
The University Business Institute is a student-led nonprofit research organization that studies the challenges of young adults as they intersect with the corporate world. Our work is produced by students across three continents and draws upon the expertise of a diverse set of research professionals. While the UBI does conduct proprietary research for private organizations, all project reports are made publicly available for the public benefit.
