 Financial bootstrapping and social capital: how technology-based start-ups fund innovationDavid Smith International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2009, vol. 10, issue 2, 199-209 Abstract: Innovation requires more than technological expertise. It is a time consuming activity requiring access to a range of resources including finance. Yet, innovators involved in start-ups rarely have direct access to significant financial resources. Instead, they turn to a variety of forms of financial bootstrapping. Defined as access to resources not owned or controlled by the individual innovator, bootstrapping involves imaginative and parsimonious strategies for marshalling and gaining control of resources. This paper reports on research into bootstrapping using case studies, drawn from biographies of well-known innovators. The study found that bootstrapping was widespread and innovators showed great ingenuity in obtaining finance without recourse to conventional financial institutions. Not only were ranges of bootstrapping techniques employed, the study also provided valuable insights into the importance of social capital, in the form of networks of friends, colleagues and other contacts, in providing innovators with access to bootstrapping finance. Keywords: innovation; finance; start-ups; technical entrepreneurship; financial bootstrapping; social capital; social networks; new ventures. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijeima:v:10:y:2009:i:2:p:199-209 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd |
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