The META Entrepreneurship Test: How Will It Help You?

By Ming ThamNovember 13, 20203 Comments

With the advent and developments in technology as well as rapid globalisation in recent centuries, the world has become a global village characterised by explosive growth in international business and competition. 

On the one hand, to survive, keep pace with the speed of rapid advancements and developments in the world is challenging, this also opens up a whole host of various new and prior unexplored doors of opportunities, namely that of entrepreneurship.  

Entrepreneurship tests to test entrepreneurial abilities have been increasingly used to characterise entrepreneurs or people that have such characteristics.

Brief History of META Entrepreneurship Test

The META Entrepreneurship Test is a state-of-the-art psychometric test that identifies entrepreneurial potential to help businesses nurture and retain their entrepreneurial talent. From the META Profiling Foundation, founded by Roger Thornham, University of Oxford alumni and noted financial journalist, the META foundation contains databases of a diverse set of entrepreneurs all over the world and was founded in the aim of recognising and identifying entrepreneurial talent through entrepreneurial testing.

Designed by leading scholars from Goldsmiths, NYU and UCL, in collaboration with Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance lab and the UK Government, META is the result of a comprehensive 4-year research program and has been completed by over 100,000 people, in 10 languages, in 25 countries. It is the only validated commercial tool for identifying entrepreneurial talent.

Current Entrepreneurship Tests

Having a multitude of definitions of entrepreneurship thus results in a large number of different measures of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship tests with different criteria. Many current measures and methods of measuring entrepreneurship are limited in scope because they often cast focus on only one aspect of entrepreneurship tests, such as self-employment or the rates of business start-ups.

Therefore, it can be said that many of these measures and entrepreneurship tests thus suffer from a lack of depth as well as the accompany methodological as well as statistical problems.

One of the most current widely used measures of entrepreneurship is the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s (GEM) Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) index, a calculation of the adult population engaged in entrepreneurial activity.

GEM’s TEA Index has been widely criticised by research and current literature in its failure to measure entrepreneurship that occurs within firms, its failure to use better data as well as its lack of comparability across different geographical regions due to different interpretations of survey responses.

META Entrepreneurship Test Introduction

META Entrepreneurship Foundation

Since current research fails to provide a comprehensive measure of entrepreneurship with lack of sufficient in-depth analysis of individual characteristics that an entrepreneurial individual, the META (Measure of Entrepreneurial Talents and Abilities) as well as its sister entrepreneurship test, Disruptive Talent (META DT) are timely responses to gaps in the current literature in research on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship tests.

The META Entrepreneurship Test is a state-of-the-art psychometric entrepreneurship test that identifies entrepreneurial potential in order to help businesses nurture and retain their entrepreneurial talent.

On the other hand, the META Disruptive Talent is a psychometric measure designed to help businesses identify, understand, and retain people with the ability to drive business innovation.

How does the META Entrepreneurship Test work?

Following the entrepreneurship test, users will receive a complete and curated report regarding the measure of one's entrepreneurial ability. The scores will be assessed based on four different categories: entrepreneurial creativity, opportunism, vision and proactivity. 

The scores are particularly relevant to real life given that one's score on each dimension is graphically depicted as well as normed in relation to a unique archive in the META foundation that contains data for thousands of representative adults from diverse countries. 

As noted previously, one of the biggest failings of current methods of entrepreneurship testing is the lack of diversity as well as dubious relation to real life that causes the results and measures to be not reflective of actual entrepreneurial talent. 

However, META Entrepreneur Ship’s extensive database of scores includes robust performance criteria for hundreds of jobs as well as a wide range of industries (which comprise of both entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs).

In the end, the entrepreneurship test report provides a total score, which then reflects an individual's overall entrepreneurial potential. The higher one's score is, the more willing and able one will be able to pursue successful entrepreneurial activities. 

Scales measured in the META Entrepreneurship Test

The META Entrepreneurship Test includes four scales that are measured in an individual when taking the entrepreneurship test. 

Scale #1 Entrepreneurial Creativity

The first is “Entrepreneurial Creativity”, defined by the foundation as the ability to generate innovative business ideas. 

As noted previously, much traditional notion of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship tests is rooted in the idea of an individual being able to generate new ideas that deviate from the norm.  Whilst these ideas inevitably carry some element of risk, it can be said that such creativity is essential to add value to existing industries. 

Scale #2 Opportunism 

The second is “Opportunism” which is defined by the foundation as the tendency to spot new business opportunities. 

As said by Schumpter previously, the ability to spot weaknesses or opportunities in the market and industry and then the ability to exploit these opportunities is representative of an entrepreneur. Therefore entrepreneurship test is in essence measuring your ability to seize opportunities.

Scale #3 Proactivity

The third is “Proactivity” which is defined by the foundation as the energy and willingness to get stuff done right away. 

Due to the amount of uncertainty involved when it comes to forming new entrepreneurial and business ventures, entrepreneurs need to have some measure of proactivity when it comes to executing their business ideas, vision and mission. 

Proactivity serves as an essential measure because it essentially measures the ability and speed of an entrepreneur to execute and carry out his/her business ideas. 

Scale #4 Vision

The fourth is “Vision” which is defined by the foundation to be the tendency to have a meaningful mission in life and to see the bigger picture. 

This notion of vision is also associated with entrepreneurship tests given that such individuals are risk-taking and are willing to use current gaps in the market to serve a greater purpose. In this sense, this measures an individual’s ability to see the world as it could possibly be and not as it currently is right now. 

The power of vision can be great and it is from this where we see most technology/societal advancements are born of. The advent of smartphones and other associated technology for example had required vision much beyond what was currently in the market.

Differences between META and META DT

The META Entrepreneurship Test as previously mentioned identifies entrepreneurial potential to help business nurture and retain such talent. 

The META Disruptive Talent Entrepreneurial Test (DT) on the other hand, helps businesses identify, understand and retain people with the ability to drive business innovation. 

Because they are different and are designed with different uses in mind, the META DT also uses a different set of more extensive scales to measure an individuals ability to drive business innovation. 

Scales used to measure META DT Entrepreneurship Test

  1. IDEATION: The generation of innovative business ideas 
  2. CURIOSITY: The strong desire to know and learn new things 
  3. CREATIVITY: The ability to generate original ideas, to create and invent Belief: The propensity to act on conviction, rather than trying to please others 
  4. EXECUTION: The realisation or application of innovative business ideas 
  5. OPPORTUNISM: The tendency to spot new business opportunities 
  6. PROACTIVITY: The energy and willingness to get stuff done straight away 
  7. RESILIENCE: The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties - toughness; determination
  8. LEADERSHIP: Leading innovative people and teams 
  9. VISION: The tendency to have a meaningful mission in life and to see the bigger picture 
  10. AUTHORITY: The tendency to take charge of situations; to command, control and direct 
  11. STABILITY: The ability to remain calm and optimistic under pressure 
  12. DERAILERS: Behaviours that may have a detrimental impact on a person’s performance and career progress. 
  13. HUBRIS: Excessive pride or self-confidence 
  14. MERCURIAL: The degree to which an individual demonstrates a ‘mercurial temperament’ (impulsivity, unpredictability, and eccentricity) 
  15. DOMINANCE: The degree to which an individual demonstrates overbearing behaviour

How else can the META Entrepreneurship Test be used?

Selecting the Right Team

Otherwise, the META Entrepreneurship test can also be used to select people with genuine entrepreneurial potential. Genuine potential meaning the ability to not only start businesses but also to grow and scale them in a sustainable way.

 Many start-ups frequently never make it out of the ideation to angel funding stage and because of this it is essential to realise that businesses require not only the entrepreneurial idea, but also the other characteristics that are measured by META Entrepreneurship Test to succeed. 

We have seen the importance of scaling businesses in a way to ensure that they are sustainable in the long run as too many businesses when they are growing fall into traps such as the founders trap. In order to ensure the longevity of the business and that you as an entrepreneur are selecting the correct talent to join your budding corporation, the META Entrepreneurship test serves as a useful indicator both for cultivating and selecting “new blood” to join your business but also to figure out what is lacking in your business. 

Read more about leading and developing your startup team to success here!

Click here for more information about why startups fail

Developing Existing Potential

The importance of human resource planning cannot be undermined as within start-ups, teams are small and excellent team synergy and energy is essential to ensure harmonious collaboration.


Because the META Entrepreneurship test creates profiles based on a user’s entrepreneurial ability, in essence, it is able to map out an individual’s strengths, weaknesses, and other characteristics. Thus providing a roadmap for increasing self-awareness in addition to self-growth. In this sense, as an entrepreneur, you will be able to better guide your team towards a path of continual scaling up alongside the business.


As an organisation grows in size, different skills come into play and the META Entrepreneurship test can be useful in illuminating exactly which skills are missing in your organisation and which skills have contributed to its growth and success thus far.


Putting together the correct combination of talents to maximise your organisation's chances of success can give your business a competitive edge allowing your business to pull ahead of the pack. Building an entrepreneurial team is no easy task but with META Entrepreneurship Test’s clearly defined parameters, selecting talent can be made easier given that the entrepreneurship test does not prioritise one characteristic above all, but is focused on building a holistic view of entrepreneurial ability.

Measuring Against Global Benchmarks

In addition to this, due to the wide selection of current literature on the benefits and success of the META Entrepreneurship tests and profiling, much research is available for you to benchmark yourself on a global level and measure the success of your team on a worldwide scale. 

When growing it is essential to take into account global standards if your organisation or business wishes to remain competitive while scaling up and expanding. This entrepreneurship test allows you to gain a rough idea of how operationally successful you will be on a global scale with the current human resources that are existing in the team. 

All over the world, the business sphere is dominated by entrepreneurship, startups and small-sized businesses. Click here to learn more about the Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship scene in Southeast Asia

Interested in the META Entrepreneurship Test?

Please click here for further information on the META Entrepreneurship Test or just to get in contact with us to find out more about NEXEA.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneurship

https://jvrafricagroup.co.za/catalogue/meta

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/MeasuringEntrepreneurship2008.pdf

https://wol.iza.org/articles/measurement-matters-entrepreneurship-type-motivation-and-growth/long

https://www.oecd.org/sdd/business-stats/39629644.pdf

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