How long does it take to become a Founder?

It takes 4 years of professional experience to become a founder. That is the time it takes to learn specific founder skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education.

How To Become A Founder: What It Is and Career Path

What is a founder and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

A founder is responsible for developing and maintaining a business. As a founder, you will hire staff to help in the growth of your business for more productivity and effectiveness. You are expected to supervise closely with the person given the responsibility to work and grow your business. Since you are the soul and heart of your company, you will direct the board of directors.

You are entitled to create the vision and mission for your company. Not just this, but you must hire and retain the best talent for your business. You are also responsible for building and leading an executive team for an outstanding business and workflow. Apart from this, you must keep an eye on your KPI (Key Performance Indicator), develop and manage business plans, and manage finances.

A founder must be a resourceful visionary, a good communicator, and possess superb leadership and management skills. Most founder salaries range between $50,000 to $75,000. Depending on the business you want to establish, you will almost need a bachelor's degree.

ScoreFounderUS Average

Salary

7.1

Avg. Salary $91,296

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate -5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.89%

Asian 3.71%

Black or African American 10.82%

Hispanic or Latino 16.88%

Unknown 4.87%

White 62.84%

Gender

female 35.67%

male 64.33%

Age - 45

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 45

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

4.4

Complexity level is basic

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a founder

Explore founder education requirements

Most common founder degrees

Bachelor's

71.0 %

Master's

15.6 %

Associate

6.2 %

Start to develop specific founder skills

Skills	Percentages
Web Design	24.09%
Business Strategy	5.46%
Non-Profit Organization	4.74%
Facebook	4.65%
R	4.07%

Complete relevant founder training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New founders learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a founder based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real founder resumes.

Research founder duties and responsibilities

Manage revenue, expense transactions, complete customer invoices, purchase orders (QuickBooks).
Lead team of software developers (JavaScript) and sound engineers that launch interactive sound solutions for the web.
Manage paid AdWords and Facebook marketing campaigns for consumer-persona research, brand awareness and customer acquisition.
Manage company expense and payroll accounts, purchase and deliver materials to job-sites, and business administrative services simultaneously.

Prepare your founder resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your founder resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a founder resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable founder resume templates

Build a professional founder resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your founder resume.

Apply for founder jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a founder job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How did you land your first founder job

Risa Dale

Founder, The Idea Team

All my life I have asked two questions. How? Why? All my life, I wanted to solve problems.

The thing I wanted to do was solve the issue of having another set of hands. It was one I ran into a lot while running my collaborative living space in Portland. It’s a universal concern- everything from moving something unwieldy from one spot to another even 10 feet away, to cleaning out the gutters, to hanging a mirror - requires another person. It was the agglomeration of these small but necessary problems that brought the idea to mind.

After I identified the problem, the question was how to solve it. It isn’t a new problem or one that others have not tried to solve- my concern was that most people who are in need of help cannot afford the 8K assistive devices that have been created.

I had a little bit of experience in the field- I had worked with underwater robots at Bluefin Robotics . In my time there I spent an entire month learning “on and off” and all the states in between to be able to test them. It was both a philosophical and intellectual turning point in my tech career.

So I got to work. I talked to people who lived with disability to a greater or lesser degree. I sat with my former housemate who was confined to a wheelchair in her 20’s to ask what are the most annoying and consistent problems in this space. I talked it up with every person I ran into, seeking to understand the market and the way it could be successful. I registered my LLC, and did the due diligence for the eventual patent. Which costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-40k.

I then designed a prototype that could be manufactured cheaply and sustainably. It didn’t have the strength of something like Boston Dynamics Atlas, but it was not meant for that- it was meant for helping people in the house to do those necessary tasks like changing a lightbulb or opening a jar. It was meant for someone whose arthritis made opening a water bottle impossible.

Then the rubber hit the road. The cheapest version of what I had in mind that I could manage was going to be 10 thousand dollars. Ok- money is out here. I got to work searching for funding. There are a ton of government grants out there, but unfortunately, they require a product.

I believe in my vision, but what I know about success is this- you need money, opportunity and motivation. When I have all three, I will try again.