Training Entrepreneurs to Act like Scientists: A Field Experiment with Start-ups in Turin

In order to replicate previous work exploring the relationships between the scientific approach to decision-making and entrepreneurial performance, we replicate the experimental settings presented in Camuffo et al. (2019) and Camuffo et al. (2020). Accordingly, we embed a field experiment in a pre-accelerator program by randomly assigning entrepreneurs to either a treatment (being taught how to use a scientific approach when developing a business idea) or a control group (being taught how to develop a business idea).
This pre-accelerator program provides training to early-stage entrepreneurs for a short period of time (three months). Consistently with previous studies, we targeted early-stage entrepreneurs. After a call for application, that resulted in a total of 149 applications, we selected 142 start-ups. Through STATA, each start-up was randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group through simple randomization. We checked that treatment (71 start-ups) and control groups (71 start-ups) were balanced on several key covariates that might affect the absorption of the treatment and subsequent outcomes. Differences between treatment and control are small in magnitude, and there are no significant differences between the two groups.
Treated and control teams have been trained during eight sessions from October 2018 to February 2019 (24 hours of training for each group). Consistently with the training supplied by Camuffo et al. (2019), our pre-accelerator program focused on market validation, a series of activities aimed at testing the desirability of a product or service concept against a potential target market. The content and length of each session was the same for both groups, but start-ups in the treatment group were taught how to make entrepreneurial decisions according to the scientific approach. In each class of the treatment group, start-ups were taught to elaborate a theory behind their choices, articulate hypotheses and test them rigorously. The control group, instead, did not learn about the scientific approach, but followed the traditional approach to decision-making used by entrepreneurs, that relies on trial-and-error techniques. We avoid contamination and other threats to internal validity following the same approach used by Camuffo et al. (2019).

2018-10-13

2019-01-19

Dependent Variables
Exit This is a binary variable equal to 0 until entrepreneurs exit (they abandon the program and cease their start-up), 1 when entrepreneurs decide to exit.
Pivot: This is the cumulative number of times in which a start-up changed one of the key elements of their business model canvas.
Revenue: Amount of revenue earned by the start-up.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
In order to replicate previous work exploring the relationships between the scientific approach to decision-making and entrepreneurial performance, we replicate the experimental settings presented in Camuffo et al. (2019) and Camuffo et al. (2020). Accordingly, we embed a field experiment in a pre-accelerator program by randomly assigning entrepreneurs to either a treatment (being taught how to use a scientific approach when developing a business idea) or a control group (being taught how to develop a business idea).
This pre-accelerator program provides training to early-stage entrepreneurs for a short period of time (three months). Consistently with previous studies, we targeted early-stage entrepreneurs. After a call for application, that resulted in a total of 149 applications, we selected 142 start-ups. Through STATA, each start-up was randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group through simple randomization. We checked that treatment (71 start-ups) and control groups (71 start-ups) were balanced on several key covariates that might affect the absorption of the treatment and subsequent outcomes. Differences between treatment and control are small in magnitude, and there are no significant differences between the two groups.
Treated and control teams have been trained during eight sessions from October 2018 to February 2019 (24 hours of training for each group). Consistently with the training supplied by Camuffo et al. (2019), our pre-accelerator program focused on market validation, a series of activities aimed at testing the desirability of a product or service concept against a potential target market. The content and length of each session was the same for both groups, but start-ups in the treatment group were taught how to make entrepreneurial decisions according to the scientific approach. In each class of the treatment group, start-ups were taught to elaborate a theory behind their choices, articulate hypotheses and test them rigorously. The control group, instead, did not learn about the scientific approach, but followed the traditional approach to decision-making used by entrepreneurs, that relies on trial-and-error techniques. We avoid contamination and other threats to internal validity following the same approach used by Camuffo et al. (2019).
Data Collection procedure
Consistently with previous studies, we collected detailed information on all the entrepreneurs using telephone interviews. Consistently with Camuffo et al. (2019), we conducted regular telephone interviews with each start-up. Each Telephone interview usually lasted for about 30 minutes and included questions on changes in the entrepreneurial team, about the activities conducted and on performance. Through these calls, we are able to measure if entrepreneurs abandon their business idea or if they pivot to a different one. We conducted telephone interviews from the end of the training up to February 2020 (17 data collection points, one more data collection point is scheduled for March 2020) on all the 132 start-ups that completed the pre-accelerator program.

Simple randomization implemented with STATA

Firm

No

NA

132 X 18 = 2376

66 firms in the treatment group, 66 firms in the control group