Separating the Wheat From the Chaff: Does Experience or Intuition Help to Identify Future Winners?

- Market size is a crucial consideration

- Listening to and trusting intuition is important

- Staying open to new opportunities is key

How do you identify future winners? Panelists with a wealth of experience as early-stage investors singled out some qualities worth looking out for, including the key traits of successful founders such as integrity, intelligence and drive as well as external factors.

“On the people side, obviously you want integrity, you want intelligence, you want to drive. What product are they doing, what market? And by the way, we all say that the entrepreneur is the most important thing in the decision, but that’s a lie,” Howard Morgan, Chair and General Partner at B Capital and a pioneer of early-stage investing, said.

He singled out market size as a crucial consideration. “Is the market really big enough, and are we going to be big enough?”

Morgan added that how founders react to hitting difficulties is also a crucial test. Christian Angermayer, founder of Apeiron Investment Group, said that intuition also has a role to play, but he cautioned against rushing into decisions driven by greed and speed.

“Intuition is sometimes a feeling you can’t describe...I think one of the other talents is to really listen to intuition,” he said.

Morgan noted that it is useful to recognize that intuition develops over time that it’s about identifying patterns. He also stressed the importance of a personal fit, considering the length of the relationships between investors and founders.

“And the other thing about founders is you’re gonna have to work with them for a decade. Do I want to spend a decade talking to this person every week, or even more often, sometimes?” Turning to Bitcoin, Angermayer acknowledged a particular focus.

“I’m very much like a Bitcoin maximalist, because we do other stuff, but very focused on Bitcoin. I understand it as a replacement for gold,” he said.

Looking to future predictions, the panelists talked about the potential of brain-computer interfaces, AI in discovery, and the integration of blockchain with emerging technologies. They emphasized the importance of staying open to new opportunities and the potential for significant advancements in longevity and health.