Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2021
  • Working Paper
  • HBS Working Paper Series

Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight

By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
ShareBar

Abstract

We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that entrepreneurs make less accurate predictions as they gain experience executing projects: they miss their predicted timeline to bring a product to market by nearly six additional weeks on each successive project. Although learning should improve prediction accuracy in principle, we argue that entrepreneurs also learn of opportunities to augment each successive product, which drastically expands the interdependencies beyond what an entrepreneur can anticipate. We find that entrepreneurs encounter more unforeseen interdependencies in their subsequent projects, and they sacrifice on-time delivery to address these interdependencies.

Keywords

Experience; Interdependency; Strategic Foresight; Crowdfunding; Timeline; Delay; Forecasting; Entrepreneurship; Learning; Complexity; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Development; Planning

Citation

Peterson, Aticus, and Andy Wu. "Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-123, January 2021. (Revised May 2021.)
  • Read Now

About The Author

Andy Wu

Strategy
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • August 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Ripple 2023

    By: David B. Yoffie, Andy Wu and Sarah von Bargen
    • July 2023 (Revised July 2023)
    • Faculty Research

    Generative AI Value Chain

    By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins
    • June 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Applied Intuition (B)

    By: Andy Wu
More from the Authors
  • Ripple 2023 By: David B. Yoffie, Andy Wu and Sarah von Bargen
  • Generative AI Value Chain By: Andy Wu and Matt Higgins
  • Applied Intuition (B) By: Andy Wu
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College