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Two days ago, I gave a talk at Angel Bootcamp titled “Unicorns and Tom Brady – Picking Winning Founders”.  The purpose of the talk was to illuminate some data around founders, and what characterizes successful ones. It was meant to be directional, and help folks who don’t have the benefit of being a professional investor and getting a “gut” for great founders through pattern recognition.  A couple points and takeaways: 1. I took a chunk of data from Silicon Alley Insider’s Digital Media Top 100.  It was as good a dataset as any for promising companies.  But obviously isn’t exhaustive and definitely skews towards my areas of focus, which are digital media and internet enabled businesses.  2. My partner Lee has blogged at length about our love for Tom Brady entrepreneurs. Read more about it on his blog. 3. My partner Dave has blogged about authentic entrepreneurs, which is very important to us. As I said in my talk – a 40-year old enterprise sales executive would never conceive of AirBnB and make it work.  4. See my interview with Matt Lauzon to hear some crazy stories about a young, first time entrepreneur who is creative and hustles.  5. Here’s a link to the academic paper and the book around evaluating human capital that I referenced.  They are excellent reads.  6. If you are in Boston and want to get more involved in the startup community – check out my Hitchiker’s Guide to the Boston Tech Community.  Thanks!