Business & Finance
Startup Founder
Founders create something from nothing — finding a problem, building a product, and growing a business. The highest-variance path here: huge upside, real chance of failure, total autonomy.
Median salary
$70,000
Typical range
Varied – $1000k
Job outlook
N/A (self-directed)
AI exposure
Plan a path to Startup Founder
Education
Typical entry: No degree required
No formal requirement; skills, grit, and network matter most.
Plan my path to this →Typical progression
Junior Startup Founder
Entry / Junior
Varied
~2 yrs to advance
Startup Founder
Established
$70,000
~3 yrs to advance
Senior Startup Founder
Senior
$535,000
Key skills
A typical day
- •Build and sell the product
- •Raise money and hire
- •Do whatever's most broken
Fields of study
Business · Computer Science · Any field
Top colleges for Business & Finance
Explore all- University of Pennsylvania6% admit · $112,000 grad pay
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology4% admit · $124,000 grad pay
- Harvard University4% admit · $119,000 grad pay
- University of California, Berkeley11% admit · $97,000 grad pay
- New York University12% admit · $84,000 grad pay
Reputation-based selection; stats shown are outcome data per school.
Related careers
Other careers from this field of study
Mapped by field-of-study code (Business, Computer Science, Any field), not by job-title guessing.