Design based entrepreneurship

Designers are often recognized as natural entrepreneurs, due to their creative skills and competences in the idea-generation and product development processes. A number of studies shows that creative professionals are more likely to become self-employed. In general though, there are not many studies on design entrepreneurs, and those who has been made, focus on design entrepreneurs’ lack business competences in administration, marketing and operation, as well as their lack of skills and priority, when it comes to the development of their businesses.
This study will nuance this picture of the design entrepreneur by building upon a new direction within entrepreneurial research, which focuses on entrepreneurial expertise and logic. At a theoretical level, we will show that there are some overlap between the expert entrepreneurial logic (effectuation) and the ‘designerly ways of knowing and doing’.
We review three cases with novice design entrepreneurs, where we have been able to identify examples of the novice design entrepreneurs using ‘effectual logic’. The examples are described and analysed using Sarasvathys 5 principles, showing that 3 of 5 principles are found in the cases.