Dali - The start-up founding team

Purpose and goal

Project Dali started with the hypothesis that entrepreneurs building growth companies based on innovation have some distinctive and unique abilities. Many studies have been made on leaders within the corporate world, but we don´t see how this can be directly translated into the the startup world. The project has collected and analyzed data using interviews and relevant tests to verify this hypothesis. The result is presented in a separate report.

Expected results and effects

We see that the outcome of the project becomes an important piece in the work already performed in selecting and developing teams. It will not provide all the answers. Interviews, references from previous partners and existing team development tools, etc will still be important in the process. On the other hand, we see that the result of the project will provide coaches with valuable insights and support in selecting, recruiting and developing teams.

Planned approach and implementation

In the project, we have used four different tools to find common denominators on a selection of entrepreneurs from Umeå, Malmö / Lund and Stockholm; a systematic deep interview, a personality test based on the Big Five, an IQ related test and a neuroscience test. By measuring in four completely different ways, we hoped to get characteristic features while reducing the risk of bias. The entrepreneurs we recruited have all built one or more companies bases on an innovation and have played a decisive role in the company´s growth. The biggest challenge has been to reach our target 25% women (17%).