U25 and thinking you have founder DNA? Here are the tells.
As a VC currently on tour across 15 CEE countries to recruit the top 1% talents, these are the 3 characteristics that make me take a bet on a young founder:
Tour Status: 2/15 Cities ✅
Chișinău was a blast. 40+ students asked question after question, dove deeper at every turn, and pushed back on ideas without hesitation.
No wonder so many top companies were founded by people from the CEE region.
Now imagine recruiting them early, cultivating that raw talent, and flying them to SF where the environment works in their favor.
Oh wait, we’re doing exactly that 🙂
The biggest advantage these founders have over anyone else is their speed of learning and ability to adapt.
They knew nothing about the exercise going in.
I gave them 40 minutes: 10 to think individually and write down their ideas, 30 to work in groups.
They asked a few questions upfront to understand the rules, and then they got to work.
With no hesitation, they adapted to the scenario, the ideas, and the situation as we went on.
Most of them aren’t even aware of how good they are.
Here are the traits I look for:
1. Curiosity
The key to building the right solution is being genuinely interested in the problem you’re solving and the people experiencing it.
One group was working on a problem involving athletes and didn’t think to ask if anyone in the room was actually an athlete. I pointed that out and walked away. Under three minutes later, I heard one of the girls from that same group ask: “Has anyone here personally experienced this problem?”
She didn’t wait to be taught twice.
2. Intelligence
It shows up as the ability to think deeply and connect the dots between everything happening around you.
There was a guy in the room and every time he spoke, people turned to listen. He didn’t just share a conclusion, but walked everyone through the entire thinking process that got him there.
That tells me I can spend two weeks with you and by the end of it, you’ve learned everything you need to start building.
3. High Agency
Thinking for yourself, learning things nobody told you to learn, and always finding a way forward.
One girl disagreed with something I said and wanted to approach the problem differently. Perfect 🙂
Another wanted to go from being introverted to extroverted. I told her to take acting classes. That shows willingness to get over your fears for the greater good:)
Then there was a team building a democracy tracker, built on blockchain. They want to make voting transparent and easy to verify.
Who can say young people are not interested in politics now?;)
Another team was building AI video detection for journalists to cross-verify news before publishing. They already had 3,000 users.
That’s high agency. You don’t wait for permission to take action.
I personally came to SF one year ago with no brand, no network, just my experience and the figure-it-out gene.
Now I get to travel to 15 countries, recruit the top 1% talent, fund them, and fly them to SF to build global companies from day one.
📍Next stop? Already in Sofia, Bulgaria
( but you can track me live here )
The Debrief after each event lands right here, so might as well subscribe.
If you’re a builder ready to take the next step, a partner who wants to plug in, or an LP looking for early access to ReaktorX, DM me on LinkedIn.
P.S. Huge thanks to Artcor Creative Center for hosting us!
