Purpose

Though extant literature has mapped various stages of start-up enterprise growth, there is limited research on the phases that an entrepreneur traverses before the enterprise is started and established as a venture. The paper attempts to understand the lived experiences of young Indians as they negotiate the entrepreneurial path.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative method, where primary data were collected using in-depth interviews of 15 start-up entrepreneurs. These narratives were compared with Bansal's descriptions of entrepreneurs in her book “Connect the dots”. The interview transcripts and the detailed descriptions were analysed for emergent themes.

Findings

Results indicated that there are five distinct stages in the development of a start-up entrepreneur; namely – pre-entrepreneurial stage, inflexion point, cocoon period, initial stage, crisis stage and, depending upon the success factors and support received during crisis stage, either a success stage or failure stage.

Originality/value

This is a narrative-based, qualitative approach to understand the lived experiences of young start-up entrepreneurs in India and an attempt to map developmental phases. The fact that India is a fast-growing market for start-ups and the higher rate of failure of start-ups in India makes the study relevant.

中文翻译：

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我如何成为一名企业家：对年轻创业企业家的探索性研究

目的

尽管现有文献描绘了初创企业成长的各个阶段，但对企业家在企业开始并作为风险企业成立之前所经历的阶段的研究有限。本文试图了解年轻印度人在谈判创业道路时的生活经历。

设计/方法/方法

定性方法，通过对 15 位初创企业家的深入访谈收集原始数据。这些叙述与班萨尔在她的书“连接点”中对企业家的描述进行了比较。对采访记录和详细描述进行了分析，以发现紧急主题。

发现

结果表明，创业者的发展有五个不同的阶段；即 – 创业前阶段、拐点、茧期、初始阶段、危机阶段，以及取决于成功因素和危机阶段获得的支持，成功阶段或失败阶段。

原创性/价值

这是一种基于叙事的定性方法，用于了解印度年轻初创企业家的生活经历，并尝试绘制发展阶段图。印度是初创企业的快速增长市场，而且印度初创企业的失败率较高，这一事实使这项研究具有相关性。