Article: Thursday 17 September
Entrepreneurship is important because it creates new companies, opens up new markets, and nurtures new skills. And there’s lots of research into how entrepreneurs should develop their ideas, but less research on their personal vulnerability in their early stages. What supports or hinders entrepreneurs on this part of the journey? New research reveals that embracing doubt about a business venture rather than fighting it may be the key to entrepreneurial success in the critical early stages. Dr Magdalena Cholakova of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), PhD candidate Umut Yalcin and Professor Costas Andriopoulos of Bayes Business School, University of London wrote Bearing, Belittling or Befriending Doubt: Understanding Doubt’s Generative versus Corrosive Effect on Entrepreneurs’ Early-Stage Idea Validation published in the Academy of Management Journal.
This new research invites a rethink of interpreting and responding to struggles so that doubt no longer deters people, but guides them forward. Existing research into entrepreneurship has assumed that entrepreneurs don’t question their initial ability and motivation to launch an enterprise, once they have decided to pursue it. Instead, such research focuses on questions, directly associated with the validation of the idea behind the enterprise – is it technically feasible, does the market want it, is it financially viable?
“What matters is not whether they experience doubts – they inevitably do,” says Magdalena Cholakova. “It is how they respond to these doubts that then affects the extent to which they can either produce some proof of concept and remain committed to their entrepreneurial goal, or disengage.”
This early phase of enterprises, when entrepreneurs are just starting out with their ideas and want to create an initial proof of concept, is well known to be the most vulnerable. The 2025 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor shows over 40 per cent of those seeing good opportunities to start a business would not do so primarily out of fear of failure.
“We wanted to know what happens psychologically in those first few months when entrepreneurs try to validate their ideas, and what supports people through this uncertain phase,” say the researchers.
They followed 35 entrepreneurs during a three-month incubator programme and asked them every week to reflect on their experiences as they strove to validate their initial ideas, and to describe their next steps. “This allowed us to track how they made sense of early setbacks, the types of doubt they experienced, and the type of action they took as a result.”
“We observed that even when facing similar types of challenges, there were differences in how they attributed the setbacks and responded to them. This shaped the type of doubt they experienced, and manifested either as self-doubt, doubts about the idea itself, or both. And this influenced whether or not they made progress, and whether they remained committed to the goal or disengaged.”
The researchers found that entrepreneurs tended to have one of three types of response:
These entrepreneurs internalise the setbacks and blame themselves for them as a result of perceived lack of abilities – a form of self-doubt. And if they think they cannot improve their competences, the self-doubt lingers and drains their attention away from working on the doubts associated with the idea of the venture. As this limits progress, they might normalise the emotional struggle, telling themselves it’s ‘just part of entrepreneurship’. This leaves them stuck in the bind of wanting to pursue the idea but feeling unable to take action towards it. And then this gradually curbs their commitment to pursuing the idea. A key early signal for this growing disengagement is wishful thinking and daydreaming without setting concrete action steps.
This group attributes setbacks to external factors like bad timing, unhelpful feedback, or plain old tough luck. While this helps protect their self-confidence, it also lets them ignore potentially useful critiques that they tend to downplay as unimportant. As a result, they make less targeted progress in refining their ideas, which eventually unravels their interest and commitment to the pursuit of their goal.
A tell-tale sign of disengagement from the real factors affecting progress is procrastination, or putting conditions on exerting efforts in the future until they get some hypothetical external validation.
These individuals treat both self and idea-related doubts as useful guidance. They attribute setbacks to not having invested enough effort in the right places. And instead of feeling blocked by these doubts or eager to dismiss them, they embrace them. They attend to the surprise that setbacks bring and embrace the ensuing doubts, helping them stretch their existing competences and refine their ideas. These entrepreneurs get enjoyment from the sense of overcoming challenges and from continuously learning, and remain committed to pursuing their goal.
Importantly, this third group doesn’t feel less doubt. They just have a more productive relationship with it, which helps them both develop their ideas further and begin extending their existing personal competences to meet the changing demands of the task.
The researchers say their findings show entrepreneurs need to shift how they think about doubt. Rather than treating it as a weakness, it should be seen as a natural and potentially productive part of progress.
They made three recommendations for creating entrepreneurial business communities that can turn doubt from hindering to helping:
Encourage people to see the separation between setbacks (performance) and self-worth. Offer them validation for their efforts, not just their outcomes. Help people reframe setbacks as a signal of not having invested enough effort into the right priorities, rather than as a verdict on their ability.
People who blame external factors for negative feedback might preserve their self-image but they fail to learn from their experiences. Gently challenging this helps refine ideas, maintains engagement and improves outcomes.
The research could be useful against the loss of promising entrepreneurial journeys before they even begin. Spotting the signals of self-doubt, disengagement, or avoidance behaviours early, and developing targeted interventions can support psychological resilience, well-being, and sustained motivation. And what’s more, even though the study was not focused on gender, they observed a concerning pattern: female entrepreneurs were more likely to internalise blame and become trapped in ruminative self-doubt. “This significantly affected their ability to validate their ideas, even when those ideas could have had high potential,” said Dr Cholakova.
The implications of the researchers’ studies go well beyond the world of start-ups. Doubt, disengagement, and internalised failure can appear in any high-stakes, high-uncertainty domain including academia and education. For example, in academia, early-career researchers often face repeated rejection and uncertainty – so much so that many talented individuals question their competence and abandon promising paths. In education, students conditioned to chase outcomes rather than learning and personal growth may disengage at the first signs of struggle, interpreting it as a sign of incompetence rather than a natural part of growth.
The researchers say they hope their work would spur interest in developing tools and interventions aimed at supporting entrepreneurs’ well-being, resilience, and learning orientation in the early stages of idea development.
Bearing, Belittling or Befriending Doubt: Understanding Doubt’s Generative versus Corrosive Effect on Entrepreneurs’ Early-Stage Idea Validation[JW1] published in the Academy of Management Journal.
Science Communication and Media Officer
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) is one of Europe’s top-ranked business schools. RSM provides ground-breaking research and education furthering excellence in all aspects of management and is based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade. RSM’s primary focus is on developing business leaders with international careers who can become a force for positive change by carrying their innovative mindset into a sustainable future. Our first-class range of bachelor, master, MBA, PhD and executive programmes encourage them to become to become critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinkers and doers.
