While entrepreneurship training programs often have mixed success, a recent study from HEC Paris suggests that growth-specific training can greatly support the sales and revenue of startups. What’s more, the intervention was especially useful for founders of high-growth startups who expected rapid growth for their ventures.
Indeed, the researchers found that training in so-called “catalyst-growth tools” enabled founders to achieve a boost in sales of around 72%, which represents around 40% more than entrepreneurs who didn’t get the same support.
Targeted training
Personalized training and coaching were provided to around 103 entrepreneurs, with another batch of around 80 used as a control group. The training consisted of helping with building internal teams, business model design, and successfully leveraging external networks, with each area deemed crucial to execute innovation-led growth.
The training also seemed to boost the survival rate of the venture, with those undergoing the training some 16% more likely to see their business survive than their peers in the control group. The researchers believe their findings could help policymakers design interventions to help startups thrive.
“Fast-growing new ventures founded by opportunity-seeking entrepreneurs benefit society because they are key sources of jobs and innovation that boost economic prosperity,” the researchers explain. “We hope our work encourages new research on entrepreneur training and inform policymakers to draw new plans to help entrepreneurs, as they are key drivers of economic growth.”
They’re confident in the robustness of their findings, and highlight how many previous studies into entrepreneurship training were conducted in developing countries, where the circumstances are very different, and indeed the training was often not targeted specifically at growth.
“Our central finding is that training entrepreneurs in growth-catalyst tools related to business model innovation, networking, and team structuring have a causal effect on their new ventures’ growth,” the authors conclude.
