My research focuses on successful entrepreneurial strategies related to different stages of a venture’s lifecycle: growth, divestment and entry, in three projects.

In the first on growth, I explore the relative advantages of a growth strategy based on the creation of different organisational entities –business group growth– over traditional company growth.

The novelty of the study is the focus on the individual –entrepreneur– rather than the company as the focal unit of analysis to study business growth. In this way, I can document and study how business groups are formed and devised for business growth in entrepreneurial initiatives.

In the second project on divestment, I study the behaviour and exit decision of portfolio entrepreneurs who own more than one company. Borrowing from literature on resource redeployment and entrepreneurial experimentation, I develop a model of portfolio entrepreneurship in which the main advantage is the founder’s ability to redeploy resources from new ventures to established ones. This potential for redeployment facilitates their exit from new businesses that fail initial market tests and increases the average quality of the surviving businesses.

In the last project, I study how small start-ups can challenge bigger incumbents targeting niche market segments. By focusing on performance improvements that reduce key barriers to product consumption and diffusion in the formerly niche, new entrants can ride the exponential growth in the niche segment to ultimately become market leaders. I empirically examine this phenomenon in the US mobile dating app industry from 2008 to 2013.