A Garage and an Idea: What More Does an Entrepreneur Need?

Abstract

There exists a common belief that entrepreneurs commonly start businesses in garages (or basements or dorm rooms or kitchens). The garage entrepreneur is a highly popular contemporary legend, but not quite accurate. An emergent notion in academic research is that entrepreneurs are often organizational products. They typically acquire confidence, business knowledge, and social connections via prior experience at existing organizations. These psychological and social resources aid entrepreneurs in forming companies. Although the belief of the garage entrepreneur contributes to the preservation of the American ideals of opportunity and upward social mobility, it offers misleading insights to would-be entrepreneurs because it suggests an undersocialized view of the entrepreneurial process. Individuals, companies, policy makers, and business schools will benefit from recasting the garage as a contemporary legend and focusing instead on the lessons that can be derived from an understanding of entrepreneurs as organizational products.