Entrepreneurial support seeking and affordances in online communities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has caused significant and unforeseen problems for entrepreneurs. Normally, entrepreneurs would seek social support in their networks to help deal with these issues. However, due to social distancing, physical networking is more difficult, and instead, entrepreneurs have to turn to alternative support sources, such as online communities. We, therefore, investigate support-seeking in online communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and thereby uncover action possibilities that online communities offer to entrepreneurs. We analyze conversation data from an online community of entrepreneurs on Reddit (r/startups) between January 1st and July 7th, 2020, totaling 64’718 community posts. Through a qualitative analysis, we outline what types of support entrepreneurs seek, how support-seeking unfolds, and discover four action possibilities that online communities offer: Online communities help entrepreneurs to resolve problems, reframe their problems, reflect on their situation and refocus thinking and efforts. Our paper contributes to (1) the debate around entrepreneurs’ support during the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) the knowledge about digital entrepreneurial support-seeking and (3) the growing interest in the digital affordances that entrepreneurs can access, such as online communities.