Occupational Experiences and Chances of Success of Founders of Businesses (Munich Founder Study)

Factors in the success of newly founded small companies.
Topics: Time of registering in the business registry; area of
business; legal form; company headquarters at time of registration;
type of location; new founding or businesses takeover; founding year
of company taken over; relation to company taken over; founding an
independent company or a branch office; founding for purposes of
primary or secondary occupation; self-employed or non-self-employed
after founding the business; termination of another employment for
the purpose of the new founding; share of working hours for the new
company; hours worked each week immediately after company founding;
number of full-time employees, part-time employees and those helping
without pay at the time of registration of the company; actual start
of business at the time of official registration; institutions and
facilities, with which contact was established to prepare founding;
type of direct founding preparations; duration of preparation of
company founding; plans worked out in writing before registration;
type of written plans such as investment plan, financial plan,
turnover, costs and profit forecast, liquidity plan; test phase for
the company before registration; duration of this start-up phase;
amount of start capital and outside - as well as share of personal
capital; sources of outside capital; deadline for repayment of
outside capital; founding with or without partner; capital share of
partner at founding; occupational experience of partner in the area
of business; extent of participation of partner; number of partners;
conflicts with partners; most important problem areas with partners;
respondent as founder or co-founder of company; personal support by
partner through life, relatives, friends, business partners, earlier
employers or earlier colleagues; price, circle of customers, breadth
of offerings, product spectrum, market situation or achieving income
as primary goals at company founding; problems in the start-up phase;
time required until break-even-point and until balance of earlier
personal income; characterization of initial development of company;
development of employees and turnover during the first few years;
expected further development of company; important company changes
since existence; change of legal form; change in company management
and business management; expansion of business area; increasing
capital; share of turnover of largest supplier; characterization of
basic conditions in the market (scale).
Questions on business founder himself: education and occupational
training; employment biography until business founding; unemployment
during the last 10 years before company founding; number of earlier
business registrations and registration in the same or similar area
of business; professional situation immediately before the founding;
net income before founding; number of employees at earlier place of
work and range of control; usability of knowledge from the earlier
activity; unemployment as reason for company founding; personally
giving notice to prepare company founding; date of birth;
citizenship; year of immigration to the Federal Republic; religious
affiliation; marital status; support by spouse or partner through
life in company founding (scale); social origins; employment of
father in the same area of business; company founding at place of
residence; length of residence at location of company; commuting time
to company; self-employed in social surroundings; memberships in
associations, clubs and parties; judgement on the consequences of the
EC domestic market for the German economy and one´s own company
(scale); judgement on statements about economy and society in the
Federal Republic; party preference; self-assessment of social class;
judgement on company founding in retrospect; judgement on personal
success in professional life; advice to company founders.
The following questions were posed for business discontinued in the
meantime: date of discontinuation; agreement of actual end of
business and point in time reported; reason for discontinuation;
losses from founding; financial losses among business partners,
suppliers and creditors; type of employment discontinuation.
Also encoded was:
correctness of the information on point in time of
registry in the business register; place of interview;
presence of other persons during interview;
presence of employees, business
partners or spouse during interview;
interventions of other persons in the course of the interview;
willingness of respondent to cooperate;
assessment of reliability of responses of respondent;
respondent is foreigner; length of interview; date of interview;
sex of interviewer; age of interviewer; identification of interviewer.