Bite me! ABC’s Shark Tank as a path to entrepreneurship

Baylee Smith and Angelino Viceisza
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Baylee Smith: United States Navy

Small Business Economics, 2018, vol. 50, issue 3, No 4, 463-479

Abstract: Abstract Business pitch competitions provide early-stage finance and mentoring for entrepreneurs. In this paper, we analyze data from the most public, high-stakes pitch competition in the USA: ABC’s Shark Tank. We construct a dataset comprising all entrepreneurs/firms that have aired between August 2009 and May 2016. Our findings: (1) funding on the show seems to relax an internal financial constraint, rather than signal the quality of the venture to potential outside investors; (2) to the extent that the latter is occurring, there is plausible evidence that the signaling effect works in an unexpected direction for women entrepreneurs—it may crowd out attention from potential investors; (3) while it is fairly clear that this pitch competition is associated with longer-run existence of firms, it has no significant impacts on innovation; (4) there are no consistent differential impacts on racial/ethnic minorities. These findings complement the literature on the impact of pitch competitions and (early) access to finance.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Pitch competition; Angel-to-venture capital financing; Shark Tank (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 L26 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11187-017-9880-8

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