The Business Gestation Process of Novice, Serial, and Parallel Business Founders

Abstract

This article explores the new business gestation process among three types of entrepreneurs: novice founders, serial founders (i.e., those individuals who have previously owned a business but sold it or closed it down), and parallel founders (i.e., those individuals who own at least one business while trying to start another). Founders were identified from a random sample of 9,533 Norwegian adults. Data were collected during 1996. One hundred and sixty respondents were classified as nascent entrepreneurs (i.e., those individuals starting a new business from scratch). One year later, information was collected from this group of nascent entrepreneurs surrounding their current activities. Detailed analysis revealed several differences with regard to the activities carried out during the gestation process among the three types of founders. Most notably, parallel entrepreneurs where found to have a higher probability of venture implementation than novice and serial founders.