The Speed Ethic: Accelerated Entrepreneurship, Frenetic Standstill and Start-Up Deceleration

There is a widespread assumption that a valuable characteristic of entrepreneurs is speed. Entrepreneurs are good when they are quick at spotting opportunities, nimble in exploiting them, rapid in scaling their operations, and speedy in admitting failure. In short entrepreneurs are supposed to embody what we call the speed ethic. This is the valuation of hastefulness as a good in and of itself. Drawing on the work of Hartmut Rosa, we argue that this speed ethic is created by a wider process of social acceleration. We argue that speed ethic has a number of positives such as capturing first mover advantage and confirming to stakeholder pressure (particularly from investors). However, the speed ethic can lead to frenetic standstill. This happens when entrepreneurs become stuck in patterns of hyperactivity which leads to no significant change. An important part of frenetic standstill is ethical fragility, whereby entrepreneur's values seem increasing provision and empty. To address the problems with the speed ethic, we explore an alternative entrepreneurial ethic: slowness. We argue this involves nurturing a craft, long term commitment to an industry, and creation of substantive innovations. We illustrate this by drawing on some examples from the emerging 'slowtrepreneurship' movement. The paper concludes by suggesting that slow entrepreneurship could be nurtured by the creation of start-up decelerators.