Originally found on Phys.org, by Michael Brown

Entrepreneurs looking to raise money on crowdfunding sites are better off following in the footsteps of ideas that fell just short of their fundraising goals than coming in behind projects that enjoyed modest success, according to a University of Alberta study that proposes the role of the entrepreneur might be to grow the pie for all and not just grab their piece.

"There is this sense that past entrepreneurial successes somehow have a spillover effect, a tide that lifts all boats and helps future entrepreneurs, but that has been very difficult to test," said U of A entrepreneurship researcher Joel Gehman, who supervised the study conducted by Jean-François Soublière as part of his Ph.D. dissertation.

Thanks to the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, Soublière and Gehman were able to test with very fine precision ideas about how past successes and failures shaped future endeavours, as well as their likelihood of success or failure.

Continue reading the original article at Phys.org.

Read the original research in Academy of Management Journal.

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Jean-François Soublière, McGill University

Joel Gehman, University of Alberta