Training aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch experienced investors: Evidence from a field experiment in the United States

Training aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch experienced investors: Evidence from a field experiment in the United States

Accredited investors finance more than 75,000 U.S. startups annually. We explain how training aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their new business ideas to these investors a ects their odds of continued funding discussions. We model accredited investors’ decision to continue investigation as a real op...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Clingingsmith, D. (Author), Shane, S. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: INFORMS Inst.for Operations Res.and the Management Sciences 2018
Subjects:
Business idea
Data support
Experiment
Experiments
Field experiment
Investment
Investments
Management
Operations research
Personnel training
Pitching
Real Options
Startups
Training
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
Description
Summary:Accredited investors finance more than 75,000 U.S. startups annually. We explain how training aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their new business ideas to these investors a ects their odds of continued funding discussions. We model accredited investors’ decision to continue investigation as a real option whose value is a function of their experience and the information contained in the entrepreneurs’ pitches. We derive four hypotheses from the model, which we test through a field experiment that randomly assigns pitch training at four elevator pitch competitions. The data support all four hypotheses and are inconsistent with alternative explanations. © 2017 INFORMS.
ISBN:00251909 (ISSN)
DOI:10.1287/mnsc.2017.2882

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