A new intuitive new web app allows users to navigate the degree to which they are motivated to entrepreneurship or business building, discover their entrepreneurial blind spots and compare their results with co-founders, team, friends and a sample of the world most successful entrepreneurs.
Fingerprint for Success uses evidence-based analysis from 15-years of research benchmarking the attitudes and motivations that correlate with venture success, providing invaluable insight for aspiring entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs building their business, co-founders and angel investors, VCs, accelerators and incubators.
The platform has been made possible with the support of investors in both Australia and the US including: Creel Price – Entrepreneur, Author and Trevor Folsom – Angel Investor, Entrepreneur from Investible (Australia). Mark Rowland – Entrepreneur, ROCeteer and Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and Founder of The Downtown Project (United States).
Creel Price, Entrepreneur, Investible said, “Tech that disrupts industries or changes the way we live and work has become the norm. What is less common is tech that makes a meaningful difference to who we are as individuals. Fingerprint for Success is one of the most exciting developments in understanding the entrepreneurial mindset and the reason why Investible uses the platform for every aspect of our business and compelled us to invest in the development of the latest application”.
What is the story behind Fingerprint for Success?
Founder & CEO Michelle Duval has been a personal coach for close to 20 years and founded one of the earliest coaching firms in Australia, Equilibrio Coaching in 1997 at a time when coaching was only beginning to emerge in the United States and didn’t yet exist as a recognised profession in Australia. She has coached thousands of individuals and developed an international niche of creative artists such as actors, writers, producers, inventors and entrepreneurs.
Michelle also co-authored two international books on coaching and have been featured in two books recognising the ‘world’s most successful coaches’.
While she was coaching, Michelle noticed that as changes are made in her entrepreneurial clients personal attitudes, motivations and beliefs, it has a big impact on business results, which led to a 15-year peer reviewed study into the attitudes and motivations of Australian entrepreneurs and business builders and the relationship they have to business failure and success.
How exactly does this platform work?
Participants complete an in-depth assessment of 48 of their intrinsic attitudes, motivations and preferences, specifically in the context of their work or business. The process takes around 30 minutes and is highly reliable (89-98 per cent score in reliability tests) with results available immediately on completion. It is nearly statistically impossible for two users to receive the same results, hence creating a ‘fingerprint’ or unique high-level summary.
Michelle said, “Participants gain enormous self-awareness not only of their motivations and attitudes but how they can help or hinder venture success. Motivations are different from fixed ‘personality traits’, they are a person’s interests, focus, style or preferences and can be dialed up or down at different stages of the entrepreneurial journey to align with those that lead to venture success.”
“The app becomes really interesting when participants start to compare their results. Users can invite co-founders, team members, friends, family or even rivals. Through the lens of embracing unique styles and approaches to business, the app provides a framework for aligning passions, interests and uniqueness and the ability to curate the ideal business teams that thrive together,” Duval continued.
In a world-first feature, users can benchmark their personal motivations against samples of entrepreneurs who started a business and exited within five years for a sale price of between AU$6 million and AU$1.2 billion and others who have profitably grown a business over 10 years and longer.
Complex results are simplified on a user-friendly visual interface, provided immediately upon completion of the assessment. Users can take a topline look or dig deep into their results with features including in-depth descriptions and 90-second videos on each motivation. Result summaries include:
- Overview: top and lowest attitudes as well as blind spots and whether the participants are motivated to Entrepreneurship or Business Building (see definitions in editor notes). Based on blind spots, the results also provide recommendations for enhancing personal success and the type of attitudes that would be complementary in a co-founder, advisor or mentor.
- Benchmark Report: Participants can benchmark their motivations and those of others against research samples of highly successful entrepreneurs or business builders.
- Ranking Report: Participants can rank their motivations and those of others against the research samples of entrepreneurs and business builders. They can invite and compare their results compared to co-workers or friends.
- Individual Motivations: Each of the 48 individual motivations are listed in order based on the assessment. For each motivation, the participant can learn how high or low levels influences venture success. A video for each motivation outlines how it impacts how others in the workplace may see them, how it correlates to venture success and failure and blind spots or bias associated with the motivation. Examples of scenarios and examples of how the motivation can play out in the workplaces as well as recommendations for words and phrases that should be used more or less for those with this motivation is included.
- Motivation Groups: Learn about how motivations can be grouped, search and sort and compare your groups to others.
Join the Fingerprint for Success community at fingerprintforsuccess.com. Early access to the beta version is available for 500 users from 15 August, 2016 then by invite from existing users or waitlist. Registration is US $99 and provides founders with deep insight into their entrepreneurial motivations and blind spots, and the ability to curate co-founder chemistry.
