A team of researchers in Europe analyzed 10,000 university students, and those with symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were much more likely to take risks and want to start their own business, as they sought to apply their own ideas, act without approval and running their own project seemed more attractive than having a traditional job. In fact, a 2018 Small Business Economics study found that the ADHD prevailed in 29% of employers.
This is a neurodevelopmental disorder and is regularly directly associated with childhood, in which problems such as anxiety, depression and certain types of learning disorders occur; however, studies and research have identified that it is very common to find this condition in adulthood.
There are several examples of entrepreneurs who mentioned having ADHD and who used it to their advantage to push their ideas and start their own companies, such as Barbara Ann Corcoran, a real estate entrepreneur, or Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, despite this, it is not a guarantee that having this condition will turn people into successful entrepreneurs.
That same magazine launched a study in 2021 that analyzed 164 companies that were created in the last 10 years in the Netherlands, and some cases were discovered in which founders with ADHD symptoms managed to have a better impact on the benefits your product offers and therefore, in customer satisfaction.
Likewise, it was discovered that these founders with ADHD benefited when they applied themselves to tasks such as: launch and grow a business, attract new investors, hire employees, increase sales. But when this condition manifested itself in issues focused on the invention or development of new products, the results of their companies were not so positive.
Diagnosing and treating it will be a boost
In this sense, Mark Suster, managing partner of Upfront Ventures, the largest venture capital firm in Los Angeles, mentioned in an interview with Inc. magazine about the Difficulty you had completing tasks, his boredom in topics that were not of interest to him or his time management problems; This all changed when he discovered the book “Freed from Distraction: Making the Most of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder” which was recommended to him by his assistant who noticed his symptoms.
At first, the businessman did not believe that he suffered from this condition because he had the idea that people who suffered from these symptoms were not successful people and as he investigated the subject, he discovered that there was someone who understood what was happening to him.
“I couldn’t believe someone actually understood how my brain worked, there’s a checklist, and it was like an explanation from me. Millions of people, especially adults, have the disease.but they don’t know about it and therefore don’t get help,” Suster said.
Features business creation
An international group of researchers, including experts from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany, the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, and Syracuse University in New York, determined that people with ADHD show a different logic than perhaps better suited to entrepreneurship.
In the study, which was published in the Journal of Business Venturing Insights, four qualities that patients with ADHD may present and from which they can benefit to undertake successfully were detected.
1. Impulsivity
This feeling is what leads many people with this condition to start the business they have in mind and make important decisions without hesitation, usually after having difficulties adapting to a corporate environment; however, there are certain areas in which those impulses may not be so positive and it is better that those responsibilities be delegated, an example: accounting.
2. Hyperfocus
It translates into a certain obsession or dedication to a thing or topic, which makes them experts, so they can help develop improvements in your product or service. Suster described this passage as a wind tunnel in which they are only interested in eating or being late, they only concentrate on what interests them.
3. High activity rate
Arturo Elías Ayub comments that to become an entrepreneur you have to be willing to cut it and work very hard every day for what you are looking for and in this sense, entrepreneurs with ADHD will be willing to work whatever is necessary, whenever and wherever .
