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We advance entrepreneurship research by developing a theoretical model of how founding teams form. Our neo-Carnegie model situates nascent founders in particular network-structural milieus, engaging in aspiration-driven search for and evaluation of prospective co-founders. The formation of co-founding ties between nascent founders can be divided into four theoretical steps, which we label activation, evaluation, approach, and reciprocation. Successful founding team formation is a consequence of mutually favorable evaluations by nascent founders in a multi-sided matching process. Nascent founders with higher and less flexible aspirations are more likely to undertake distant search for co-founders by seeking referrals, forming ties with strangers, and forming new ties to social foci where they might meet potential co-founders. Churn in newly formed founding teams emerges as a consequence of shifting dominant coalition dynamics in the founding team caused by organic venture evolution and intentional changes in strategic direction. Our theoretical model provides new insights on the formation pathways of founding teams, their initial task and relational resource endowments, and initial team dynamics.

This research objective was to explore how Romanian IT family businesses' co-founders enable entrepreneuring through familiness practices. The authors explored what familiness practices emerge and how these are facilitated and supported by the rhetoric framework.

Drawing on Romanian IT entrepreneurs' practice from five case studies of IT family businesses and purposive revelatory cases, the authors considered the family co-founders' narratives and representations of familiness presented in 31 interviews.

The respondents' communication in entrepreneuring is a joint collaborative effort of the family co-founders to function well. Family entrepreneurs generate positive perceptions in favour of enterprising families using persuasive communication via rhetoric appeals to familiness ethos, familiness logos and familiness pathos, leading to constructive conflict management. The rhetoric of persuasion supports family entrepreneuring.

The authors conducted multiple case studies, profiling technological co-founders and family entrepreneurs in the challenging circumstances of an emerging economy.

The analysis of the use of rhetoric contributes to a better understanding of familiness practices in the family business. Through appeals to ethos, family business entrepreneurs enforce family values built on shared history, complementarity and moral exemplarity. The appeals to logos in entrepreneuring involve fulfilling complementary roles, alignment and continuous learning and coaching. The appeals to pathos are about emotions and how the family entrepreneurs' discourse enforces constructive handling of emotions.

The perceived familiness communicated through appeals to ethos, logos and pathos contributes to legitimating the family firm structures.

Theorising from family entrepreneurs' familiness practices, the authors suggest that entrepreneuring requires good communication of the representation of familiness for co-founders, employees and other stakeholders to also serve constructive conflict handling. The perceived familiness communicated through appeals to ethos, logos and pathos helps family businesses leverage their unique strengths and resources in the entrepreneuring process.

This paper investigates how early-stage founders use the 60-s nascent pitch to attract co-founders, by applying the narrative paradigm.

Videos of supported and non-supported pitches from Startup Weekend were analysed using the Grounded Theory Method.

The findings were used to develop a framework for a successful nascent pitch. It shows that founders who can engage the audience, convey credibility and use symbols effectively are more likely to attract co-founders. Bringing these three elements together through personalisation, that is, making the startup concept tangible and personally relevant for co-founders to visualise, enables the founder to talk a venture into existence.

This paper holds implications for founders and entrepreneurship mentors to craft a powerful, persuasive pitch by drawing on the framework.

The framework brings a holistic understanding to the nascent pitch and explains how nascent founders acquire human resources at one of the earliest stages of venture formation. In this way, concerns of prior fragmented approaches focussed only on narrative elements of investment pitches are addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to unravel the underpinnings of the phenomenon of shared leadership. The study was carried out with the objective of answering questions such as what is shared in shared leadership, what are individual and team level factors which lead to sharing and what are the outcomes of shared leadership.

The study adopted a qualitative approach. Eighteen in-depth interviews were conducted. The data were analysed using Nvivo 11 software.

The study found that in entrepreneurial teams while sharing leadership, cofounders share competencies, roles, vision, stress and decision-making. The study also reveals various individual and team level factors which facilitate shared leadership and its outcomes.

The study offers critical insights regarding the characteristics of individuals and team where shared leadership would work and hence can be used to understand the factors to be considered while forming teams. The study also has important insights for the investors regarding what dynamics to look for in individuals and teams before making investment decisions.

The inductive approach adopted in the study helps in understanding some of the basic underpinnings of the phenomenon of shared leadership which were not adequately answered by previous studies.

Entrepreneurship literature has not sufficiently explored the process of how, at different points in time, different members of the co-founding team emerge as leaders. The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct the phenomenon of shared leadership emergence process amongst co-founders in entrepreneurial teams.

The study adopted a qualitative approach. 21 co-founders from 7 entrepreneurial teams participated in the study. In-depth interviews were conducted. The data were analysed using Nvivo 11 software.

The study elaborates the process model of shared leadership emergence. The study found that shared interpersonal cognition and trust amongst the co-founders lead to claiming and granting of leadership. The findings also illustrate various strategies used by co-founders to emerge as leaders.

The findings provide key insights to entrepreneurial teams by illuminating what kind of leadership dynamics should be developed, right from the initial stages of the venture. Also, the findings would be beneficial to investors, mentors and coaches of the entrepreneurial teams and ventures, by highlighting team dynamics to be considered before making any investment or team development decisions.

The inductive approach adopted in the study helps in understanding the process of shared leadership emergence in entrepreneurial teams, which is not adequately answered by previous studies. The study extends both shared leadership and entrepreneurship literature by providing a process theory of leadership emergence.

Kaleidofin was co-founded in 2017 by Puneet Gupta and Sucharita Mukherjee; former CFO and CEO of IFMR (Institute for Financial Management and Research) Holdings Pvt Ltd. As part of their roles at IFMR, Gupta and Mukherjee focused on designing products and developing technology to push for financial inclusion. In their field interactions, the co-founders had an epiphany of the challenges faced by people while trying to save towards important life goals. They saw an opportunity in the large segment of financially under-served people in India and quit their jobs to start Kaleidofin. Kaleidofin was conceptualised as a digital platform that offers customised financial solutions to help customers meet their life goals. The start-up partnered with mutual fund companies for solutions on one hand and network partners (NGOs, microfinance organizations, cooperative banks) on the other for access to their existing customers.

Kaleidofin grew from 50 customers in January 2018 to 15,000 customers by March 2019. Aiming to grow to 1 million customers in the next 30 months Kaleidofin faces a dilemma about its future course. The start-up could continue to grow by expanding its current target segment which is the low-income households and preserve its vision at the risk of increasing costs. The second option would be to look at other potential target segments, such as, middle-income households and risk diluting their vision. The case study highlights the unique customer-centric model of Kaleidofin and the need for start-ups to understand the value proposition of their products/services.

Learning outcomes can only be achieved through using case-based pedagogy. Instructors must encourage students to dive deeply into the case dilemma, so they are able to engage with the case objectives and questions, applying the appropriate theory. By doing so, students can provide solutions based on five core objectives. These are the objectives that students should learn after completing the case discussion: ■ Critique the marketing activities for implications of global branding. ■ Understand the turnaround strategies in the context of the digital economy and COVID-19 crisis to build a global brand and drive B2C customers from awareness and advocacy. ■ Suggest a map of traditional and digital marketing strategies to enhance the company’s efficiency and effectiveness. ■ Discuss the three main sources of influence marketers can implement to drive customers from awareness to advocacy across the customers’ path. ■ Discuss the application of the UN 17 SDGs practices in today’s fashion industry.

In 2018, Ali El Nawawi and Mai Kassem decided to start up the Scarabaeus Sacer brand to take their passion for social and human development and create ethical fashion streetwear. Scarabaeus Sacer was an Egyptian brand that sold 100% organic Egyptian cotton fashionable streetwear, and the core mission of the fledgling company was “promoting Egyptian organic cotton textiles with a premium quality globally” (Al Nawawi, 2021). While Scarabaeus was mainly guided by the well-being, sustainability, and mental health goals of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) numbers 3, 8, 11 and 12 (good health and well-being; decent work and economic growth; sustainable cities and communities; and responsible consumption and production), their position as an advocacy brand was only beginning to be understood by their customers in Egypt. With the rapid increase of e-commerce during the COVID-19 crisis and their previous international experience, the co-founders wanted to achieve their mission of building a global brand that promotes Egyptian organic cotton and sustainability while offering unique designs of fashionable streetwear. To achieve this mission, the co-founders El Nawawi and Kassem faced major decisions related to marketing strategies at the beginning of 2020. These included how to build global brand awareness and brand advocacy for well-being, sustainability and mental health with a special focus on penetrating new markets (namely, Europe and the USA) to stock their products on e-commerce platforms and advocating their cause and increase their sales.

This case is suitable for graduate-level marketing courses in which it allows students to engage with classical marketing strategies, digital marketing, global branding, communication, media and sales within a management framework.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding his pioneering efforts in starting robotic companies and commercializing technological inventions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The interviewee is Jack Morrison, CEO and Co-Founder, Scythe Robotics. Morrison shares how he and his co-founders started this innovative company, the milestones and challenges he’s faced and his long-term goals.

Morrison received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Computer Science and German from Bowdoin College. He attended The George Washington University as a PhD student in Computer Science but left to co-found Replica Labs, a producer of software that turns any mobile phone into a high-quality 3D scanner. Morrison served as Replica’s CTO until it was acquired by Occipital in 2016, where he stayed on as a computer vision engineer until co-founding Scythe Robotics in April 2018.

While mowing his lawn in Colorado, Jack Morrison had a sudden insight: what if he could apply the latest robotics technology he was so familiar with to the challenge of commercialized landscaping? In 2018, Morrison teamed up with Replica Labs co-founder Isaac Roberts and Occipital’s Davis Foster, to create Scythe Robotics, a company that builds autonomous robotics solutions for the $105bn commercial landscaping industry. In June 2021, Scythe Robotics emerged from stealth with over $18m in funding with its first commercial product: a transformational, all-electric, fully autonomous mower designed to keep crew productivity high while also increasing the quality of cut and worker safety. The machine features eight high dynamic range cameras and a suite of other sensors that enable it to operate safely in dynamic environments by identifying and responding to the presence of humans, animals and other potential obstacles. Simultaneously, the machine captures valuable property and mower performance data, which helps landscape contractors improve workflow, identify upsell opportunities, schedule more efficiently and manage labor costs. The all-electric powertrain is quiet, emissions-free and radically more reliable than gas-powered manual mowers. Scythe Robotics’ business model is based on Robot as a Service. Instead of buying machines outright, customers are billed by acres mowed. This massively reduces contractors’ expenses and eliminates substantial costs. Scythe Robotics is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado and has offices in Vero Beach, FL and Austin, TX. Scythe is the recipient of the 2020 ALCC (Associated Landscape Contractors CO) Innovation Winner and the 2021 Colorado OEDIT Advanced Industries Grantee.

We examine the ability of co-founders of a firm to create an artificial (or “homemade”) dividend as in Miller and Modigliani (1961). We employ traditional discounted valuation in showing that the act of creating an artificial dividend may decrease the value of the firm because it can divert funds from investment to the consumption of perquisites. Only where there is complete trust in the party to which the shares are sold can a co-founder costlessly create an artificial dividend. It seems likely that a dividend policy, idiosyncratic to the firm’s founders, would be established at the founding of the firm.

UrbanClap was setup in October 2014 to address the opportunity of bringing the workforce from the unorganised sector into the mainstream using the power of technology. It was an on-demand marketplace for services available through a mobile app. In the initial years, UrbanClap, developed as horizontal marketplace, saw intense competition from existing and new players who were operating in the hyperlocal services space. It competed in the on-demand service marketplace by categorising its services into a lead generation business (where it connected customers with the service provider and charged a fee for matchmaking) and a fulfilment business (where UrbanClap took end-to-end responsibility for quality of service delivery). After three and half years of operations, the three co-founders wondered if it was time they moved out of lead generation and instead focussed on the fulfilment business.