Balancing the Tradeoff between Personal Fulfillment and Competitiveness in Venture Creation

Abstract

The fascination of venture creation is associated with an entrepreneur's opportunity of achieving personal fulfillment. In reality, however, many nascent entrepreneurs discover that much of their original vision is sacrificed in the process of creating a startup. In this paper we address the conflict between the entrepreneur's fulfillment and the startup's competitiveness from a negotiationanalytic perspective. We show how the nature of this conflict is transformed in the process of business planning, and we demonstrate how a purely marketoriented focus on expansion serves to enhance personal fulfillment. Our analytical approach has practical implications for business development and entrepreneurial education.