This research aims to help technology entrepreneurs conduct effective assessments for three important early-stage decisions, namely: (1) whether to pursue a business opportunity, (2) which process to follow to define the launch product to get the business off the ground in the short term, and (3) how to strategically align technology and market development at the early stage to build competitive advantage in the longer term. As previous studies suggest that people make decisions based on judgements of certain questions, this research focuses on understanding: (a) what key questions technology do entrepreneurs consider and what underlying rationale do they follow when making the three focal decisions, and (b) how may technology entrepreneur conduct effective the key questions in an entrepreneurial environment?

To understand these two main questions, the researcher selected case studies as the research method and interviewed 20 entrepreneurs from 17 technology-based firms, asking how they approached these three decisions at the early stage of their company’s development. Through case studies, this research (a) identified a set of key questions relating to each focal decision, and (b) proposed a method to help technology entrepreneurs achieve effective these questions. The findings were then developed into a tool to test with technology entrepreneurs and other stakeholders of technology entrepreneurship such as venture capitalists and incubator managers. Their positive feedback verified the main findings and highlighted a number of possible implications of this research.

This research contributes to existing knowledge in both practical and theoretical perspectives. Practically, this research helps technology entrepreneurs conduct effective assessments for the three early-stage decisions. With respect to theoretical contributions, this research challenges conventional understandings of ‘what determines decision quality’ by claiming that high quality decisions do not depend principally on accurate answer to key questions, but rather require entrepreneurs’ appropriate understanding of the reliability of the answer they gave.