Entrepreneur Entry Strategy and Startup Performance: The Attention Based View

Building on recent studies on entrepreneurs’ entry strategy type and the attention-based view (ABV), our study examines the under-explored relationship between the entrepreneurial entry strategy and funding performance. In doing so, we emphasize a critical role of attention as an underlying mechanism of the entry strategy—funding performance relationship. We argue that depending on the entry strategy type (e.g., hybrid entrepreneur, multi-business entrepreneur, full-time entrepreneur), the amount of attention paid to entrepreneurial activities should be heterogeneous. Subsequently, we posit that the amount of attention is positively associated with funding performance, controlling for entrepreneurs’ capabilities and project quality. We study our research question in the research context of crowdfunding, using Kickstarter platform data, and find results supporting our predictions.