Motivation is an abstract concept that can be used for explaining the direction of human behaviour, or why in given situations or circumstances people behave in certain ways, choosing activities that bring them closer to their aim, or avoid those activities that may have undesirable consequences. Human motives represent a unique personal experience and that is why it is important to study them. According to McClelland's theory of needs, three needs are differentiated: the need for achievement, the need for affiliation and the need for power. The aim of this paper is to determine the types of entrepreneur-manager according to development of their need for achievement, need for affiliation and need for power, and to determine whether the intrinsic motivation of entrepreneurs-managers mediates in financial success of the company. The study included 178 entrepreneurs-managers, owners of micro, small and medium company, which generate most of their income from computer programming activities and are registered in the Republic of Croatia. The Unified Motives Scale and The Multidimensional Professional Motivation Scale were used in the study, while the Modified index of financial success (MIFU) was used to measure the financial performance of a company. The results showed that there are different types/subtypes of entrepreneurs-managers, and that they can be differentiated depending on their dominant need and order of intensity of other needs. From three types of entrepreneurs-managers, most frequent were those of type 1 (with dominant need for achievement). The results did not provide evidence of higher financial performance of companies led by type 1 entrepreneurs-managers compared to other types (type 2 – dominant need for affiliation and type 3 - dominant need for power). However, the additional classification of entrepreneurs-managers of type 1 into subtypes showed that companies led by entrepreneurs-managers of subtype 1b (dominant need for achievement and need for power greater than the need for affiliation) were significantly more financially successful (had a higher MIFU value) than other companies. Regression analysis showed that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are related to the financial performance of the company, with intrinsic motivation having a greater independent contribution to explaining that performance. The mediating effect of intrinsic motivation in the relationship between the type of entrepreneur-manager and the financial success of the enterprise has not been confirmed. When the analysis was conducted in such a way that type 1 entrepreneur-manager was divided into two subtypes, it was found that belonging to subtype 1b is a significant predictor of MIFU value of the company. By adding intrinsic motivation, in the second step of the analysis, a certain reduction in the beta weight of the subtype 1b predictor was obtained, but this change was very small. It can be concluded that the intrinsic motivation of the entrepreneur-manager is a predictor of the MIFU value of the company, regardless of what type the entrepreneur-manager belongs to. The impact of entrepreneur-manager motivation on financial performance of the company they lead, where entrepreneurs-managers are classified into different types/subtypes, has not been researched in the Republic of Croatia, so this paper opens the possibility for further empirical research of the topic.