Assessing the importance of managerial and entrepreneurial experience in entrepreneurial training programs

Do entrepreneurs’ managerial and entrepreneurial experiences influence the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial training (ET) programs they receive? We address this question through a field experiment conducted within a pre-incubation program that involves 132 early-stage start-ups in Italy. Half of the participants received ET based on the scientific approach to decision-making, and the remaining received heuristic training. We exploit exogenous variation from the experiment to show that only entrepreneurs without any managerial or entrepreneurial experience see the effects of ET in terms of the termination of nonpromising projects and pivot decisions. Conversely, only entrepreneurs with previous managerial or entrepreneurial experience see the effects of ET in terms of superior early revenue generated. These findings highlight the importance of designing tailored ET programs according to the prior experience of entrepreneurs.