EQUITY CROWDFUNDING AND ACCESS TO CAPITAL FOR USER ENTREPRENEURS: EVIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED FIELD EXPERIMENT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bapna, Sofia; Ganco, Martin
• 署名单位: University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
• 刊物名称: MIS QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0276-7783
• DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2022/17006
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 585-610
• 关键词: innovation; GENDER; KNOWLEDGE; uncertainty; performance; TECHNOLOGY; entry

摘要

We examine whether equity crowdfunding democratizes access to funding for nontraditional user entrepreneurs. User entrepreneurs start by creating a product to serve their own unmet needs with no expectations of monetary profit, then later decide to commercialize the product through entrepreneurship. In contrast, traditional (producer) entrepreneurs take a more profit-driven path to entrepreneurship and start by identifying an opportunity that has commercial potential. Through a randomized field experiment, we randomly reveal to some investors that a firm producing a product used by musicians is founded by a musician and conceal this founder-related information from other investors. Revealing the information suggests that the firm is a user innovator firm and concealing it suggests that the firm is a traditional producer firm. We find that investors are significantly more interested in the traditional producer firm. Through an additional field experiment, we identify that the bias against user entrepreneurs is statistical (based on a response to limited information) rather than taste based (based on an idiosyncratic dislike). Our findings suggest that user entrepreneurs can mitigate investor bias by displaying signals of quality such as those regarding firm growth and broad product appeal.