Research Outline

Correlation Between Burning Man Participants and Founders of Successful Startups

Goals

Determine insights and statistics on the correlation of Burning Man festival attendees and successful startup founders. The information will be used to validate this correlation and determine the viability of a VC that is focused on burners.

Early Findings

Correlation Between Burning Man Participants and Founders of Successful Startups

Based on the comments on the given Facebook post, there are some insights that touch on the correlation between the Burning Man festival's attendees and startup founders.
  • According to a commenter, the person would prefer to invest or collaborate with burners if all the other factors will remain the same.
  • Another commenter mentioned about an anecdote that he is already in the process of starting up his second company.
  • His first company deals with flight training and the second startup that he established produces an absinthe product.
  • The ideas for the companies above blossomed from his experience making and serving absinthe for the Green Hour in BRC.
  • Based on the comment of another group member, the Google co-founders were known to have hired their CEO from a roster of Burning Man's attendees.
  • However, there is a prevailing assumption that any conclusive correlation is most probably based on geographical location as the location of the event is near California, a favorite location for startups.
  • Furthermore, it was observed that using the festival to build business connections tend to be more linked to common values rather than business competency.