Unveiling the role of entrepreneurial teams in the equity crowdfunding journey

Despite the rapid spread of equity crowdfunding, the role and actions played by entrepreneurial teams in this context have been neglected; the few studies in this field adopted a static view and focused primarily on their signaling role in equity crowdfunding campaigns, compared to solo founders. This study adopts a dynamic view and extends current literature by exploring the underlying dynamics and the role of entrepreneurial teams in the entire equity crowdfunding journey. Our findings reveal that entrepreneurial teams play a crucial role in three phases of equity crowdfunding, namely, the pre-campaign, during the campaign, and post-campaign phases. In the first phase, entrepreneurial teams are crucial in enhancing entrepreneurial alertness, social media use, social capital, entrepreneurial openness, and reducing the perceived uncertainty. The analysis shows that entrepreneurial teams are determinant for the success of the equity crowdfunding campaigns for human capital signals, certifications, social media use, and increased social capital and communication activities. Finally, the results highlight that entrepreneurial teams have valuable importance in the post-campaign phases in terms of crowd involvement/management, social capital and knowledge/network exploitation, improved resource mobilization, and resilience/robustness. Notably, social capital has a dynamic effect on equity crowdfunding activities over time. The results of this research have several implications for theory and for practice. We also discuss the implications of our findings for adopting a team approach, for small businesses undertaking the equity crowdfunding journey, and for other actors including platform managers and prospective investors. The decision to find a new venture in a team has lasting effects for the entire life of the venture and implications for its survival, development, growth, and funding strategies. We examined entrepreneurial teams in the context of equity crowdfunding, a popular alternative market for young/small businesses that has recently grown exponentially. Prior research has taken a static view of the role of entrepreneurial teams in single phases of the equity crowdfunding journey and largely focused on their effects (on funding success) during the campaign. We conducted a qualitative research to explore in-depth the role and actions of the entrepreneurial team in the entire equity crowdfunding journey. Our research took into consideration the dynamic impact of entrepreneurial teams and highlighted their importance over time. Specifically, our findings provide novel insights on their involvement, contribution, and activities in each of the three phases, namely, pre-campaign, during the campaign, and post-campaign phases. The study highlights that entrepreneurial teams are crucial to increase venture openness and resource/opportunity recognition (pre-campaign phase), the probability of having successful equity crowdfunding campaigns, and better managing the post-campaign phase (including crowd engagement and knowledge/network exploitation). We find interesting implications for entrepreneurs who may consider a team approach to their ventures being a potential significant opportunity to increase the future benefits and cope with uncertain market scenarios, thus reducing possible negative impacts. Platform managers, investors, governments/regulators, and incubators/accelerators could take specific actions and programs considering the importance of entrepreneurial teams (e.g., promoting teams' entrepreneurial decision-making, campaigns' communication, and direct engagements).