Each year creates a new archetype of what a “great founder” looks like.
In 2025, a new wave of builders broke out — scrappier, more technical, and more ruthless about product velocity.

Here are the five founder traits that defined 2025 — and what they signal for anyone building or backing something in 2026.

5 Founder Traits That Defined 2025

1. Compound Execution Over Hype

The best founders this year played long games. They weren't chasing headlines — they were stacking small, consistent wins. Revenue grew quietly. Unit economics made sense. Teams stayed lean.
The biggest unlock: ruthless prioritization.

2. Obsessive Distribution Thinking

2025 founders didn’t wait for virality. They engineered distribution early — embedding GTM into product, turning customers into evangelists, and partnering with incumbents who suddenly needed AI-native solutions.

3. Technical Fluency

This year’s breakout leaders either wrote code or deeply understood the technical constraints of their products. They could ship, debug, and iterate without waiting for a contractor. AI-native builders outpaced everyone.

4. Being “Default Alive” from Day 1

The pendulum swung hard. Founders prioritized burn reduction, thoughtful pricing, and multi-channel revenue from the start.

5. Founder-Market Fit Became Non-Negotiable

2025 made it clear — credibility wins. Whether from past roles, research, or lived experience, founders with deep domain intuition built better, faster, and raised more efficiently.

Founder Feature: Two Builders Redefining What “Breakout” Looks Like

Lucy Guo — Founder of Passes

Lucy Guo has become one of the standout operator-founders of 2025 — not because of hype, but because of how she builds. Passes grew on the backbone of an obsession with distribution, profitable unit economics, and actually talking to users every single day.

This year, she’s shown the industry what a “default alive” internet-era company looks like: lean team, rapid iteration, and a crystal-clear understanding of what people will pay for.

Her playbook is simple but brutally effective:

• Ship fast

• Focus on revenue

• Build with your users, not around them

For a generation of founders navigating tighter funding environments, Lucy’s discipline and scrappiness have made her one of 2025’s clearest examples of the modern breakout builder.

Share Your Voice 🗣️ 

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📹️ Missed our town hall  last week introducing our new CEO & COO? Don’t worry! Watch the recording here 

Alexandr Wang — CEO of Scale AI

On the other end of the spectrum is Alexandr Wang, whose approach looks more like a masterclass in technical leverage. Scale AI’s momentum in 2025 has been enormous — enterprise adoption, defense expansion, and increasingly, the infrastructure layer that thousands of AI-native companies now depend on.

What stands out about Alexandr isn't just technical brilliance. It’s:

• Commitment to long-term, infrastructure-level bets

• A culture built around velocity and operational rigor

• The ability to scale a deeply technical team without losing quality

Where Lucy represents speed at the earliest stage, Alexandr represents durability at scale. Together, they capture the spectrum of what a successful “2025 founder archetype” looks like: lean, user-obsessed execution on one end, and high-leverage, engineering-driven compounding on the other.

Events

🚀 Breaking into venture capital as an undergrad can feel confusing. So that’s where GIVC steps in!

Join us on Tuesday, December 16 at 7 PM EST for an info session with investors from Insight Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. 

✨Insight Partners is a global software investment firm with $80B+ AUM.
✨Bessemer Venture Partners is a multi-stage firm investing across sectors from seed through growth.

Both teams will share their focus areas, team structures, and recruiting timelines for their 2026 summer analyst programs.

Register Here

The Annual NEVY Awards, produced by the New England Venture Capital Association, celebrate Boston’s venture ecosystem with a vibrant, unconventional event that unites the region’s Tech and Life Science communities and honors its top innovators, investors, and companies.

​📅 December 11, 2025
📍 House of Blues, Boston
⏰ 7:00 – 10:00 PM EST

​New England’s premier celebration for the startup and venture ecosystem returns for its 13th year, and it’s going to be a scream.

​Hosted by the New England Venture Capital Association, this year’s NEVYs leans into the suspenseful, thrilling, and delightfully campy world of classic horror flicks. Because let’s face it: startups are scary. But with the power of community, we don’t just survive, we thrive.

​80 nominees. 16 winners. 1 unforgettable night.

👩‍💻 Discount Code: GIRLSVC for 25% off any ticket type

Fund Feature: Engine Ventures

Our fund spotlight this week is Engine Ventures, one of the clearest “new-wave” seed firms leaning into technical founders and contrarian verticals.

Why we’re watching them:

• Leading early rounds in infrastructure, applied robotics, weird tech plays

• Most partners have engineering backgrounds

• They’re underwriting founders, not hype cycles

• Consistently backing the types of people who define the next markets, not the current ones

Their 2025 thesis:
Deep competence + niche insights > pitch polish.

Opportunities

Full Time:

👩‍🏭 AI Workflow Engineer @ Alpaca VC - Apply

🪴 Growth Lead @ Goanna Capital Management - Apply 

🐕‍🦺 PART-TIME: Executive Assistant @ Authentic Ventures - Apply

🧑‍💻 GTM Business Development @ a16z - Apply 

🦉 Senior Associate, Platform & Impact @ Owl Ventures - Apply

👐 Operations Administrator @ Hitachi Ventures - Apply

🚗 Portfolio Engagement Director @ Toyota Ventures - Apply

🖼️ Portfolio Manager @ WEX VC - Apply

💰️ Investment Operations Associate @ Goanna Capital - Apply

🔢 Finance & Accounting Ops @ Atlantic Group (Partnering with a VC Group) - Apply

☃️ Head of Operations @ Cold Start - Apply

🤝 Investor Relations Analyst/Sr Analyst @ ARCHIMED - Apply

👗 Deputy Chief of Staff @ Rent The Runway - Apply

Fellowships:

💡 Fellowship @ Bain Capital Ventures - Apply

💻️ Kauffman Fellows Program (for venture capitalists) - Apply

Closing

Founders this year proved one thing: you don’t need a perfect market, a huge team, or a flashy round to build something durable.
You need velocity, clarity, and a problem you’re willing to chase for years.

Have a great week!

— The GIVC Team