The Influence of Prior Experience on Innovativeness of Startup Business Ideas

Abstract

Following the disruptive innovations theory, entrepreneurs are encouraged to focus on game-changing innovations – e.g. by policy makers – in order to become a more successful economy. Typically, these founders are backed by investors (e.g. Venture Capital), which tend to finance startups with a proven team that combines outstanding prior experience regarding the industry and the founding process itself, as these startups show higher performance. The call for disruptive innovations on the one hand, and this investment behavior on the other hand might lead to contradicting situation of producing less innovative startups and teams. We therefore question, whether a higher level of prior experience and interdisciplinary within the founding team leads to more disruptive innovations or not.