In case someone hopes to discover some secret magical sauce of success in the article, here comes the TL;DR version:

Essential characteristics: Potentially huge market,Novel product,Ability to create an advantage / difficult to compete against.

Additinally the author lists 10 non-essential characteristics of the analyzed gruop of companies:

1. Market Dynamics: Attacking a new market (or overlooked market)

2. Market Dynamics: Entering a highly competitive market

3. Enabled by a trend/change

4. Focusing on tech “invention”

5. Obvious value proposition

6. Clear path to market

7. No strong buyer power

8. No strong supplier power

9. Unfair advantage

10. Mixed business models (B2C2B, B2B2C)