Synthetic Founders: AI-Generated Social Simulations for Startup Validation Research in Computational Social Science
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Teutloff, Jorn K. |
| author_facet | Teutloff, Jorn K. |
| contents | We present a comparative docking experiment that aligns human-subject interview data with large language model (LLM)-driven synthetic personas to evaluate fidelity, divergence, and blind spots in AI-enabled simulation. Fifteen early-stage startup founders were interviewed about their hopes and concerns regarding AI-powered validation, and the same protocol was replicated with AI-generated founder and investor personas. A structured thematic synthesis revealed four categories of outcomes: (1) Convergent themes - commitment-based demand signals, black-box trust barriers, and efficiency gains were consistently emphasized across both datasets; (2) Partial overlaps - founders worried about outliers being averaged away and the stress of real customer validation, while synthetic personas highlighted irrational blind spots and framed AI as a psychological buffer; (3) Human-only themes - relational and advocacy value from early customer engagement and skepticism toward moonshot markets; and (4) Synthetic-only themes - amplified false positives and trauma blind spots, where AI may overstate adoption potential by missing negative historical experiences.
We interpret this comparative framework as evidence that LLM-driven personas constitute a form of hybrid social simulation: more linguistically expressive and adaptable than traditional rule-based agents, yet bounded by the absence of lived history and relational consequence. Rather than replacing empirical studies, we argue they function as a complementary simulation category - capable of extending hypothesis space, accelerating exploratory validation, and clarifying the boundaries of cognitive realism in computational social science. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_02605 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Synthetic Founders: AI-Generated Social Simulations for Startup Validation Research in Computational Social Science Teutloff, Jorn K. Multiagent Systems Artificial Intelligence Computers and Society 68T42 (Primary) 91F99, 92D50 (Secondary) I.6.3; I.2.11; J.4 We present a comparative docking experiment that aligns human-subject interview data with large language model (LLM)-driven synthetic personas to evaluate fidelity, divergence, and blind spots in AI-enabled simulation. Fifteen early-stage startup founders were interviewed about their hopes and concerns regarding AI-powered validation, and the same protocol was replicated with AI-generated founder and investor personas. A structured thematic synthesis revealed four categories of outcomes: (1) Convergent themes - commitment-based demand signals, black-box trust barriers, and efficiency gains were consistently emphasized across both datasets; (2) Partial overlaps - founders worried about outliers being averaged away and the stress of real customer validation, while synthetic personas highlighted irrational blind spots and framed AI as a psychological buffer; (3) Human-only themes - relational and advocacy value from early customer engagement and skepticism toward moonshot markets; and (4) Synthetic-only themes - amplified false positives and trauma blind spots, where AI may overstate adoption potential by missing negative historical experiences. We interpret this comparative framework as evidence that LLM-driven personas constitute a form of hybrid social simulation: more linguistically expressive and adaptable than traditional rule-based agents, yet bounded by the absence of lived history and relational consequence. Rather than replacing empirical studies, we argue they function as a complementary simulation category - capable of extending hypothesis space, accelerating exploratory validation, and clarifying the boundaries of cognitive realism in computational social science. |
| title | Synthetic Founders: AI-Generated Social Simulations for Startup Validation Research in Computational Social Science |
| topic | Multiagent Systems Artificial Intelligence Computers and Society 68T42 (Primary) 91F99, 92D50 (Secondary) I.6.3; I.2.11; J.4 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.02605 |