ast week we looked at the evolution of the Indian entrepreneur, from Dhirubhai Am-bani to Sachin Bansal. In this ET Maga-zine-Jombay study, we look at how en-trepreneurial behaviour has changed over the years.

As the number of startups being found-ed increases by the day, and the average age of their founders reduces, entrepre-neur behaviour on a number of fronts from risk-taking ability to strategic think-ing is witnessing a change.

To measure entrepreneur behaviour, Jombay, a talent assessment & analytics firm, conducted a psychometric assess-ment amongst 90 entrepreneurs from dif-ferent sectors (from ecommerce to educa-tion to healthcare) across seven cities. The entrepreneurs had various tenures of experience more than 10 years (22%), 5 to 10 years (32%), 0 to 2 years (18%) and 2 to 5 years (28%).

The entrepreneurs rated themselves on

a pool of traits on a scale of 1 to 10. They were asked to pick three traits that mat-tered in the following three phases of their journey: survival phase; scaling-up phase; and consolidation phase.

The sample was divided into entrepre-neurs who started up before 2008; and those who founded their startups after 2008. The results differ starkly for each phase. For instance, the pre-2008 bunch feels their primary strength is foresight. The post-2008 brigade it would seem re-lies most on its street-smartness (the post-2008 startup founders also put street-smartness as the second most important trait for survival). And, as for traits like humility and self-awareness that you were taught in school matter a lot in the journey of life, well in the journey of entrepre-neurship they seem to matter the least, if at all. A recent brashly worded resigna-tion letter (which was duly withdrawn hours later) may be testimony to that.

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How Entrepreneurial Behaviour has Changed

Top Traits that Matter on the Entrepreneurial Journey# .and the Ones that Matter Little

The Pool of Traits on which the Entrepreneurs

were RatedAbility to take risks

Capacity to handle stress Persistence

Foresight Strategic thinking Humility

Planning & prioritisation Street-smartness Decisiveness

Desire for perfection Knack of understanding people

Ability to take initiative Social intelligence Micro-management

Tendency to take data-driven decisions

Process orientation

#For both pre- and post-2008 entrepreneurs *Numbers indicate percentage of sample who voted for that trait

Top Traits Important for Consolidation

82%*

71%

72%

64%

59%

53%Social

intelligenceAbility to take risks

Tendency to take data-driven

decisions

Strategic thinking

Desire for perfection

Planning & prioritisation

Top Traits Important for Survival

73% 68%80%

Pre-2008 Entrepreneurs Post-2008 Entrepreneurs

Capacity to handle stress

Ability to take risks

Street-smartness

76% 74% 63%Persistence Foresight

Ability to take risks

Only entrepreneurs who started before 2008 were

surveyed for this

77% 69% 63%People

understanding Adaptability Decisiveness

Top Traits Important for Scaling Up

Planning & prioritisationPersistence Networking

Initiative Process OrientationSelf-awareness

Humility

Pre-2008 Entrepreneurs Post-2008 Entrepreneurs

Foresight PersistenceStrategic Thinking

Top Areas of Strength

Capacity to handle stress

Ability to take risks

in focusMAY 10-16, 2015

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most young entrepreneurs are al-most always in a hurry. Srivastava once dealt with one who was devel-oping a device for the business-to-business market. He also wanted to develop one for the business-to-consumer market, simultaneous-ly, he says. Investors felt that the entrepreneur should tackle one thing at a time. It took plenty of counselling and cajoling to get him to understand this.

Investors and mentors are figur-ing out ways to get on the same page as young entrepreneurs. There is a strong interdependen-cy and hence coexistence is essen-tial, says Kola of Kalaari Capital. After all, if the entrepreneur has a dream, the investor has his fiduci-ary obligations.

When entrepreneurs come straight out of college, a bit of inter-nal squabbling is par for the course. As an investor Ganesh feels putting together a team where young entrepreneurs work along-side experienced executives is be-coming critical. You do not want to have a company with `1,500-crore valuation and so many employees run by immature people, says Ganesh.

Sometimes, these conflicts may be constructive. For example, most startups are venturing into uncharted territories. There are times when our advice may not be right and the entrepreneur may not be wrong, admits Srivastava. In such situations, when Srivastava is unsure, he advises entrepre-neurs to seek opinions from their counterparts in a similar space.

Younger Organisational DNAThe reality is that entrepreneurs are getting younger and investors have little choice but to adapt. Helion Venture Partners has seen the age of entrepreneurs over the last decade come down. Earlier most who came to us had 8-10 years of experi-ence. Today, it is one-two years, says Ashish Gupta, cofounder, He-lion Venture Partners. So investors too have to become younger in their outlook. It starts with getting comfortable with the tools Twit-ter, Pinterest et al these younger entrepreneurs use so naturally.

Hiring young also helps. Helion has at least five-six executives in their 20s as against just one five years back. It has been a deliber-ate strategy, says Gupta.

The run-ins (and run-outs) not-withstanding, the big picture should convince entrepreneurs young and not-so-young that working together and setting aside egos and other similar bag-gage are in everyones interest. As Kola puts it: We are barely at the start of a great saga of Indian com-panies being noticed and being relevant. This is an incredible time to be an entrepreneur and inves-tor in India.

Street-smartness

Street-smartness may be the post-2008 entrepreneurs biggest strength; humility, self-awareness matter little on the entrepreneurial journey