Digital Start-up Success: How Formal Education and Academic Diversity Impact New Digital Ventures’ Performance

Abstract

Factors affecting the creation, growth, and survival of new businesses are of great interest to entrepreneurs, policymakers, and academics and have been studied for a long time. While the importance of work experience is constantly emphasized, the benefits of formal education are often questioned in practice. This study discusses the impact of founders' academic background and diversity on the success of digital startups. By analyzing 519 digital start-ups and 1,038 founders, we show that the ranking of the universities the founders graduated from and the quantitativeness of the founders’ majors both contribute to the funding success of digital start-ups. In contrast to previous literature, we were not able to confirm that diversity, measured in the distance between the rankings of two majors, has a significant impact on the success of digital start-ups. The findings enhance our understanding regarding the importance of general human capital in the digital age.