Why founder-led companies are so valuable (and why Decidr is one to watch)

And when leadership comes in the form of a founder still deeply involved in the business, the odds of long term success improve exponentially.

Across the ASX and global markets, founder-led companies consistently outperform their peers. They tend to think longer term, execute with greater agility (and passion) and maintain higher integrity to the original mission that inspired their creation.

It’s not about nostalgia or the idolatry of innovators, it’s about structural advantages that translate into measurable returns.

The numbers don’t lie

In Australia, the performance gap is significant:

• Wilson Asset Management has reported that in the past seven years, founder-led companies have represented just 20 percent of the WAM Microcap and WAM Research portfolios, yet they’ve delivered 64 percent of total returns. Plus, these ASX-listed founder-led companies have delivered 12.5 percent higher returns than the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries in this same period.
• Milford Asset Management reported its founder-led portfolio returned 30.5 percent per annum to March 2022, outpacing the ASX Small Ordinaries’ 9.6 percent annual return by a staggering 20.8 percent each year.
• Solaris Investment Management tracked top ASX founder-led companies between 2019–2024 and found they returned over 400 percent, compared to 65 percent for the broader market.

This pattern is reflected in global markets, too. Credit Suisse’s Family 1000 report found that founder-led companies globally outperformed broader markets by around 4.5 percent annually over a 15 year period.

So what’s behind this consistent outperformance?

Why do the numbers keep favouring founders? Which forces are powering this success?

1. Long term thinkingPublic companies often feel the pull of quarterly reporting pressures, optimising for the next investor update rather than the next decade.

Founders are different. They usually have a vision that spans years, even generations, and they resist compromises that could dilute that vision. That mindset can mean investing in products, markets or capabilities that won’t pay off immediately but will compound over time.

1. Mission alignment

When your personal wealth, reputation and long term vision are tied to a company’s success, your incentives are perfectly aligned with shareholders. Founders often have substantial “skin in the game” i.e. ego and equity stakes that make every decision personal. 

This alignment is felt by markets and internal teams, creating a deeper sense of commitment (even on days when it feels like all Paul and I do is yell at each other like siblings).

1. Agility and deep domain knowledge i.e. daily scaffoldingFounders are intimately connected to the DNA of their products and customers. For the most part, they make high impact decisions quickly, without layers of internal bureaucracy. This agility often enables founder-led businesses to outmanoeuvre larger competitors.
2. Cultural continuityFounders tend to embody and protect the core values of their organisation. That cultural consistency is hard to replicate, and it often becomes a competitive moat, with the internal team usually acting as its staunchest defenders.

The proof is in the locally-made pudding

A few Aussie examples that best show the power of founder-led leadership are Afterpay, Temple & Webster and the Perth-founded unicorn Canva. That said, there are so many wonderful found-led companies that have flourished at every scale and stage.

• Afterpay — Founded in 2014 by Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen, Afterpay has completely disrupted consumer payments with its “buy now, pay later” model. In just seven years, it scaled from an Australian startup to one of the world’s largest BNPL platforms, culminating in a US$29 billion acquisition by Block in 2021. I believe the founders’ ability to anticipate consumer behaviour shifts and execute rapidly was key to that trajectory.
• Temple & Webster — Launched in 2011 by Mark Coulter and Conrad Yiu, Temple & Webster has grown into Australia’s largest online furniture and homewares retailer. Over the past five years, its share price has increased 354 percent, delivering a 35 percent compound annual growth rate for shareholders. The founders’ focus on design-led ecomm and excellent culture helped them stay ahead in a crowded market.
• Canva — Back in 2013, Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams set out to make design accessible to everyone. Within ten years Canva was a global creative powerhouse, used by more than 170 million people every month in over 190 countries. Valued at AUD$54.5 billion at its peak, it’s proof that when founders hang onto the wheel, and stay obsessed with solving a problem, they can turn a small Aussie idea into a platform the whole world knows.

All of these stories share common threads. Bold vision, founder conviction and the ability to move fast when opportunity knocks.

The power of founder-executive balance

At Decidr, I’ve got the privilege of working alongside our founder, Paul Chan, whose vision for an AI-driven organisational operating system set the foundation for everything we’re building today.

Paul and I are different in all the right ways. Paul is the architect of our product and systems, the (very focused) person who turns ideas into operational reality. My role complements his. I focus on go-to-market strategy, business expansion and building the relationships that open doors for growth.

We see the world differently, which means our debates are lively, but our goals are always aligned. That important combination of trust, complementary skillsets and shared history is rare.

It’s why decision making at Decidr is fast, charged and considered all at the same time. It’s why our culture is grounded but ambitious. And it’s why we’ve been able to take an audacious vision i.e. an AI-driven organisational operating system, from concept to market with clarity and conviction.

Why this matters for investors and customers

Leadership isn’t just a line in a blog post or a talking point on a podcast. It’s the quiet, daily force that shapes how a company thinks, moves and endures.

In our case, being both founder-led and executive-driven has given Decidr something rare. The ability to see the future clearly and keep moving toward it without losing sight of who we are.

We’re builders to the core and we know the product, the technology and the customer journey from the inside out. In a space like AI, where hype is cheap and execution is gold, that combination isn’t just an advantage, it’s the reason we’ll turn potential into performance.