The emergence of large-scale digital platforms such as Facebook, Google Play and Apple App Store around 2008 has created opportunities for independent entrepreneurs to offer their self-developed software applications (“apps”) to large groups of platform users. The development and release of tens of thousands of apps by thousands of independent developers has created dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems. This paper investigates whether and how learning by independent habitual entrepreneurs unfolds in substantively different ways in such dynamic platform-based environments. We argue that in these entrepreneurial ecosystems, the timing of learning efforts becomes essential. For Facebook app developers, we find that learning from their own prior app projects remains feasible. However, entrepreneurs have only a few months during which they can benefit from what they learned from a prior app project. This study supports the feasibility of time-contingent learning from prior app projects for increasingly prevalent dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems such as digital platforms. Implications for future research and management practice are outlined.

2008 年前后，Facebook、Google Play 和 Apple App Store 等大型数字平台的出现，为独立创业者向大量平台用户提供自主开发的软件应用程序（“应用程序”）创造了机会。数以千计的独立开发者开发和发布数以万计的应用程序，创造了动态的创业生态系统。本文调查了独立的惯常企业家的学习是否以及如何在这种基于平台的动态环境中以截然不同的方式展开。我们认为，在这些创业生态系统中，学习努力的时机变得至关重要。对于 Facebook 应用程序开发人员，我们发现从他们自己之前的应用程序项目中学习仍然是可行的。然而，企业家只有几个月的时间可以从之前的应用程序项目中学到的东西中受益。这项研究支持从先前的应用程序项目中随机学习的可行性，以用于日益流行的动态创业生态系统，例如数字平台。概述了对未来研究和管理实践的影响。