The premise
There is an old saying in early-stage investing that you back the jockey, not the horse. Nicole Junkermann would put it more plainly: you back the people. A pitch can be polished and a slide can be persuasive, but companies are built by human beings over many years, and it is the human beings who determine what the company becomes. This note sets out why she places so much weight on founders, and what she looks for in them.
This is not to say ideas do not matter. They do. A good idea is the starting point, and a genuinely original insight can open a door that nobody else has noticed. But the idea is only the first move in a very long game, and the players matter more than the opening. The companies that endure are the ones whose founders could carry almost any reasonable idea through to something real.
Ideas change, teams endure
The single most practical reason to focus on founders is that ideas change. Almost every successful company looks different at maturity from how it looked at the start. The first plan meets the real world, and the real world has opinions. Markets shift, customers surprise you, and the original idea bends and adapts. What carries a company through all of that is not the idea but the team.
Nicole Junkermann has seen how a strong team will reshape an idea until it works, while a weaker team can hold a brilliant idea and watch it stall. This is why, when she weighs an opportunity, she spends so much of her attention on the people. The idea tells her where the company is starting. The founders tell her where it might end up. This focus sits at the centre of her wider approach, described in the note on how she decides which technology to back.
Deep understanding
The first quality Nicole Junkermann looks for in founders is a deep understanding of the problem they are solving. Not a surface familiarity, but the kind of knowledge that comes from living with a problem and turning it over from every angle. Founders like this can answer the second and third question, not only the first. They know where the difficulty really lies.
This depth matters because the hardest parts of building a company are rarely the obvious ones. A team that truly understands its problem can navigate the surprises, because they have a feel for what is essential and what is not. A team with only a shallow grasp tends to be knocked off course by the first complication. Depth of understanding is one of the clearest signals that a founder is built for the long haul.
Honesty and self-knowledge
The second quality is honesty, especially about what the team does not yet know. It is tempting for founders to project total certainty, but Nicole Junkermann finds the opposite more reassuring. A founder who can say clearly what is still unproven, what worries them, and where they need help is far easier to trust than one who has a confident answer for everything.
This honesty is a form of self-knowledge, and it tends to predict how a team will behave under pressure. Founders who are honest with themselves make better decisions, because they are working from a true picture rather than a flattering one. They are also more coachable, and more likely to ask for help before a small problem becomes a large one. In a backer's eyes, that candour is a strength, not a weakness.
Resilience
Building a company is a long act of endurance, and so the third quality Nicole Junkermann looks for is resilience. Every ambitious company passes through difficult stretches, the unglamorous middle years when progress is slow and the early excitement has faded. What gets a team through is the capacity to keep going, to absorb setbacks without losing heart, and to stay focused when results are not yet visible.
This is closely linked to her belief in patient capital, which she explores in the note on why patient capital matters in tech. Patient backing and resilient founders are two halves of the same idea. The backer provides the time, and the founders provide the staying power to use it well. Together they make it possible to build the kind of company that lasts.
Conviction and openness
The final quality is a balance that is rare and valuable: conviction strong enough to carry a company forward, paired with the openness to change course when the evidence demands it. These two pull against each other, and most people lean heavily toward one. The best founders hold both at once.
Too much conviction and a team marches confidently in the wrong direction, ignoring the signals that should make them stop. Too much openness and they drift, changing plans with every new opinion. Nicole Junkermann looks for founders who believe deeply in their mission and yet remain willing to be proven wrong about the details. That combination, conviction about the destination and flexibility about the route, is one of the surest signs of a team worth backing.
- Deep understanding of the problem.
- Honesty about what is not yet known.
- Resilience through the difficult middle years.
- Conviction about the mission, openness about the route.
Put these qualities together and you have the kind of founder Nicole Junkermann wants to support for the long term. To see how this fits her wider map of interests, you can return to the work of Nicole Junkermann or read the note on her map of innovation.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Nicole Junkermann invest in founders rather than just ideas?
Nicole Junkermann invests in founders because ideas change as a company grows, but the qualities of a team endure. A capable, honest and resilient team can adapt an idea into something that works, while a great idea in the wrong hands often stalls.
What qualities does Nicole Junkermann look for in founders?
Nicole Junkermann looks for deep understanding of the problem, honesty about what is not yet known, resilience through hard years, and a balance of conviction and openness to change.
Does the idea still matter to Nicole Junkermann?
Yes, the idea matters, but it is the starting point rather than the whole story. Nicole Junkermann weighs the idea alongside the team's ability to carry it through years of building.