CEO: I've invested in over 100 startup founders under age 25—the No. 1 biggest thing' that predicts their success

Josh Browder says the most successful entrepreneurs under age 25 all share a single common trait.

Browder, 28, is an entrepreneur in his own right: He's the founder of online legal services company DoNotPay, which was most recently valued at $210 million in 2021, according to Bloomberg. He's also a startup investor with his own investment firm, Browder Capital, who says he's financially backed “over 100 entrepreneurs below the age of 25 who are, by virtue of [their] company, millionaires.”

The “biggest thing” that correlates to success among those founders is a “deep connection” to the problem that their startup is working to solve, says Browder. When examining potential investing opportunities, Browder says he looks for founders with enough inherent passion for the area they're working on to withstand the rigors and inevitable setbacks of building a successful startup.

“A lot of being an entrepreneur is like eating glass,” he says, adding: “If they don't have a true connection to the problem, they're going to give up. So I look for signals that they really care about what they're building.” The philosophy is relatively common logic for early-stage startup investors, who often make bets with limited data on whether companies will grow and succeed.

Browder's investment firm raised $30 million in May from investors including Sequoia Capital to invest in young tech founders, Bloomberg reported at the time. Entrepreneurs under age 30 are more likely to be intensely passionate about the problem they're looking to solve, Browder says.

They're “much more energetic [and] ambitious,” he says. “The world is changing so quickly that these young entrepreneurs are passionate about ideas and if they don't pursue it today, they'll never get a chance to pursue it.”

He points to a couple of startups in his investment portfolio as examples.

One of them, called Coder, makes open-source tools for software developers, and has reportedly raised at least $80 million in total funding. Its founders met in high school, made money together building plug-ins and servers for Minecraft players, and founded their company to build the sorts of developer tools they wished they'd had as teens, TechCrunch reported in June 2024.

Another, Owner.com — which reached a $1 billion valuation in May by building business software for restaurant owners and other small businesses — was inspired by co-founder Adam Guild's experience watching his mother struggle to grow her own dog-grooming business, Browder notes.

Browder invested in Owner.com in 2018, struck by Guild's conviction and personal connection to the business, he says: “He instantly struck me as one of the top 0.1% people. I thought, 'This is just such a powerful story. I have to find some way to invest in him.'”

Ultimately, Browder avoids investing in founders who don't seem to be committed to their business for the long haul, he says.

“A lot of people are just building companies to get it on their resume and things like that ... Just having them care deeply about the problem puts them in the top 20% [of potential investments],” says Browder.

Browder's comments echo those of billionaire entrepreneur and startup investor Mark Cuban, who's long been adamant that founders should be extremely passionate about their businesses from the very beginning — rather than thinking about how much money they could eventually make by selling their stake.

“Don't start a company unless it's an obsession and something you love,” Cuban wrote in a 2012 column for Entrepreneur, adding: “If you have an exit strategy, it's not an obsession.”