Disagreement Predicts Startup Success: Evidence from Venture Competitions.

This paper investigates how disagreement among venture competition judges regarding a startup’s value proposition predicts the startup’s future success. Using data from 67 venture competitions involving 2,650 startups, the study finds that higher disagreement—measured by the standard deviation of judges’ scores—is associated with greater funding, higher revenues, and increased likelihood of successful exit, especially for startups with unique and distinctive propositions. The analysis shows that disagreement is not merely noise or a proxy for risk but reflects strategic divergence tied to unconventional ideas that challenge common beliefs. Additionally, former entrepreneurs among judges tend to dissent more, and disagreement is most pronounced around a startup’s business model rather than its team. These findings suggest that investors and institutions should consider disagreement as a valuable signal when evaluating novel startup ideas, addressing the “uniqueness paradox” where unique strategies are often undervalued due to evaluation difficulties.