Training Aspiring Entrepreneurs to Pitch Experienced Investors: Evidence from a Field Experiment in the United States

David Clingingsmith and Scott Shane
Additional contact information
David Clingingsmith: Case Western Reserve University

No yzpvf, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Accredited investors finance more than 75,000 U.S. start-ups annually. We explain how training aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their new business ideas to these investors affects 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.

Date: 2017-12-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/5a314371fdec39000c61bbfe/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:yzpvf

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yzpvf

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().