Co-constructing an Opportunity with a Community of Inquiry

Entrepreneurs can learn about potential opportunitiesopportunities through socialsocial interactions with communities of inquirycommunity(ies) of inquiry. However, how do entrepreneurs build such communities, and how do they engage community members over timetime to develop their potential opportunities? Building on a recent study of eight new ventures and their communities of inquiry over nine months (Shepherd et al. in Journal of Business Venturing, 106033), this chapter presents a social model of opportunity developmentopportunity development. The chapter explains how entrepreneurial teamsentrepreneurial teams that progress well toward market launch consist of varied specialistsspecialists who openly engage their communities of inquiry. This open engagementopen engagement leads such teams to gather diverse information, generate multiple alternatives (technology and market), and test conjecturesconjectures about their potential opportunities through disconfirmationdisconfirmation. In contrast, unsuccessful entrepreneurial teams rely on focused engagementengagement with their communities of inquiry. This focused engagement leads these teams to gather specific information, generate a few related alternatives, and seek to confirm their opportunity conjectures. This chapter highlights new insights into entrepreneurial teams’ engagement with communities of inquiry to explain opportunity development and, ultimately, new venture progressnew venture progress.