Venture opportunity evaluations: Comparisons between venture capitalists and inexperienced pre-nascent entrepreneurs

Abstract

Although we know something about how venture capitalists’ (VCs) evaluate opportunities, little is known about entrepreneurs’ evaluation processes before venture creation. Opportunity evaluation beliefs are antecedents to goal choice or pre-nascent activities and are different from opportunity exploitation behaviors, which are goal striving or nascent activities. Results show that inexperienced pre-nascent entrepreneurs have not institutionalized VCs criteria as common knowledge and that evaluation criteria are used differently due to differences in learning and experience. Criteria common to VCs were not all predictive for any pre-nascent individual but, as a group, all VC criteria significantly predicted evaluations of potential success.