Venture creation persistence : overcoming stage-gate issues

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into how nascent entrepreneurs persist despite outward appearances of little progress by using participant observations, and autobiographical and interview data. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing a multi-year case study, the authors use participant observation, autobiographical, and interview data to build the arguments. Findings: The authors demonstrate that persistence involves overcoming stage-gate issues, and overcoming stage gates requires a flurry of activity and opportunity variation. Once stage gates are overcome, entrepreneurs experience an emergence-like event with a new flurry of activity that propels them toward the next stage gate. Doing so, the authors extend theories of entrepreneurial persistence and entrepreneurial action by suggesting that nascent entrepreneurs who are slowly making progress toward start-up may be persisting by taking small but important steps toward start-up. Originality/value: This study offers detailed observations and analysis about the behaviors and activities that a nascent entrepreneur undertook during an extremely long gestation/persistence period, which ultimately ended with the successful completion of the goal.