Turning Shared into Firm-specific Resources: The Complementarity of Local Ecosystem and Crowdfunding Services

This study helps better understand how entrepreneurial ventures, which typically lack an internal resource base, create venture-specific value from tapping into semi-public resource environments. Based on a multi-case study of 54 entrepreneurial ventures, and guided by the resource-based view, we examine how these ventures enact and combine resources in venture-specific ways from local entrepreneurial ecosystems and Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. We find that new ventures apply the complementarity principle to create value from multiple shared resource environments. Globally oriented ventures exploit technologies and skills from local entrepreneurial ecosystems, and use them as brands to mobilize global support through crowdfunding (inside-out strategy). Locally oriented ventures use crowdfunding to augment and catalyze local community support and market-building (outside-in strategy). Our findings contribute to research on how entrepreneurial ventures create value from external resources in general and from sharing economy services, such as crowdfunding platforms, in particular.