Accelerated Entrepreneurial Process among Nascent Entrepreneurs’ Emerging Start-Ups – Experimenting Experiences

Responding to the new phenomena in entrepreneurship ecosystems in Poland, the authors aim to study the experiences of nascent entrepreneurs in a (pre) accelerator programme for start-ups. ABU3 is a business acceleration and incubation programme, where participants co-live and co-work on their new start-up ideas. The authors analyse data gathered throughout in-depth phenomenological interviews with six nascent entrepreneurs working on their start-up ideas. Employing a rather less common, inductive approach, the authors use grounded theory analysis methods, which is rare in entrepreneurship research. Their results provide 3 key categories that reflect a strong experimentation approach. The findings contribute to acceleration processes literature by providing insights into the interactive and dynamic nature, on a micro level, of individual and interpersonal behaviours among accelerator programme participants based on the study of the (pre)accelerator programme set in an emerging economy context. The practical implications indicate a careful approach to designing acceleration and incubation processes, where and when nascent entrepreneurs take advantage of experimentation, and resourceful attitudes in the entrepreneurial idea development.