How do founder social identities and the entrepreneurial orientation of a new venture combine to explain the latter’s financial performance? To address this crucial yet unanswered question, we take a set-theoretic approach based on fsQCA and analyze a sample of 492 entrepreneurs from 7 countries. We reveal nine configurations predicting either high or low financial performance, which offers unique insights into the multitude of pathways founders can take to succeed and advances several streams of literature.