Experience dimensions of nascent entrepreneurs: The influence of cognition

This study investigates the experience dimensions of nascent entrepreneurs. We analyze how different experience measures influence key success dimensions of nascent entrepreneurs. Furthermore, diverse experience backgrounds influence key exploitation dimensions (product/service development and client acquisition) in different ways. It is examined whether general and specialized entrepreneurial experience (i.e. experience in business plan evaluation and experience gained by prior capital invested) influences these exploitation dimensions in different ways than functional experience (management, finance and marketing experience). Accordingly, this study investigates the differences in experience backgrounds both conceptually and empirically. Therefore, a conceptual framework for positive and negative impact of experience backgrounds is introduced. Empirical results are derived from data of 260 nascent entrepreneurs. Our main findings show that general entrepreneurial experience fosters start-up success. In addition, general functional work experience (management experience) fosters business idea exploitation. In contrast to prior literature, we find that specialized experience like experience in finance or prior investor experience can actually hinder the exploitation success because of cognitive bias. Furthermore, a negative moderating effect of the number of portfolio ventures on the experience-exploitation success relationship is detected. Implications and future research are discussed.