In the high-pressure world of entrepreneurship and innovation, understanding how founders think, decide and sometimes fail is more critical than ever.At London Business School, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Olenka Kacperczyk has built her academic career on decoding that world-examining everything from the social dynamics of start-up teams to the hidden costs of success. In this edition of “Five Minutes with the Faculty,” she reflects on what drives her research, why failure is frequently enough misunderstood, and how her work inside the classroom and beyond is helping shape the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders.
Exploring entrepreneurial ecosystems and the science of startup success
In conversation, Kacperczyk describes innovation not as a lone-genius pursuit, but as a densely woven web of investors, mentors, policymakers and even cultural norms that collectively determine which ideas survive.Her research traces how networks, geography and institutional support influence outcomes, revealing why some cities become launchpads for global companies while others struggle to move beyond hype. She points to subtle but decisive factors-like attitudes to failure, the availability of patient capital, and the presence of experienced “repeat founders”-that quietly tilt the odds of success. In this view, founders are not just building startups; they are navigating an evolving system of incentives, constraints and opportunities that can accelerate or stall their progress.
To make this system visible, Kacperczyk dissects the anatomy of entrepreneurial hotspots, focusing on how different actors contribute to a more resilient pipeline of ventures. Among the patterns she highlights are:
- Dense mentorship networks that shorten the learning curve for first-time founders.
- Specialist investors who understand sector risk and back enterprising, long-horizon ideas.
- Universities as engines of both talent and commercially relevant research.
- Policy frameworks that reward experimentation rather than just short-term stability.
| Element | Role in Startup Outcomes |
|---|---|
| Serial founders | Recycle experience and capital into new ventures |
| Angel networks | Bridge the funding gap before institutional VC |
| Local norms | Shape risk appetite and tolerance for failure |
| Public support | De-risks early R&D and frontier innovation |
How social networks shape opportunity recognition and venture performance
In Kacperczyk’s research, who you know is not a throwaway career cliché but a measurable asset that shapes whether ideas ever leave the drawing board.She shows that entrepreneurs embedded in diverse, cross-cutting circles-spanning former colleagues, industry peers and even online communities-are exposed to a richer flow of market signals.These networks act as early warning systems and opportunity radars, revealing gaps competitors have missed and emerging needs before they become obvious. Simultaneously occurring, social ties impose subtle constraints: dense, closed networks may protect trust and speed up collaboration, yet they can also recycle the same assumptions and blind entrepreneurs to bolder, more disruptive paths.
Once a venture is launched, these social structures become a performance engine. Investors, early adopters and mentors often arrive via personal recommendations rather than formal pitches, and the credibility conferred by a trusted contact can accelerate traction far more than a polished slide deck. Kacperczyk highlights that the most resilient founders are deliberate architects of their social worlds, cultivating ties that provide:
- Information – insider knowledge of technologies, regulations and shifting consumer moods
- Resources – introductions to capital, talent and distribution channels
- Legitimacy – endorsements that lower perceived risk for partners and customers
| Network Type | Key Benefit | Typical Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Loose, diverse ties | Fresh, non-redundant ideas | Novel opportunities spotted early |
| Dense, trusted circles | Fast coordination, strong backing | Execution speed and resilience |
| Bridge positions | Access to multiple worlds | Strategic advantage over rivals |
Translating research into classroom practice at London Business School
In her electives on entrepreneurship and social networks, Olenka Kacperczyk breaks down complex empirical findings into tools executives can deploy the very next day. Rather of presenting research as something abstract and distant, she uses live datasets, anonymised case vignettes and interactive experiments to show how founders misread risk, how investors actually behave under uncertainty, and why informal connections can outperform formal structures. Students are encouraged to interrogate the underlying evidence behind each framework, turning lecture rooms into what she calls “mini research labs”, where hypotheses are tested against participants’ own ventures and career decisions.
- Real-time data labs using current market and funding statistics
- Simulation-based projects mirroring investor and founder behavior
- Network-mapping exercises to visualise influence and opportunity flows
- Evidence-led debriefs connecting classroom outcomes to peer-reviewed studies
| Research Insight | Classroom Application |
|---|---|
| Risk-taking in entrepreneurship | Designing venture pitch decks that surface hidden assumptions |
| Power of social networks | Creating personal “opportunity maps” for careers and start-ups |
| Investor decision biases | Role-play negotiations to practise framing and counter-framing |
Practical advice for aspiring founders navigating risk, failure and growth
Founders often overestimate the drama of individual setbacks and underestimate the power of disciplined iteration. Instead of asking, “Will this fail?”, a more productive question is, “How cheaply and quickly can I find out what doesn’t work?” This mindset turns risk into a series of contained experiments rather than a single, career-defining gamble. Create a personal “risk ledger” that forces you to distinguish between catastrophic risks (legal exposure, reputational damage, cash-flow collapse) and merely uncomfortable ones (pivoting product, changing pricing, pruning features). The former must be minimised; the latter are frequently enough the tuition fees of entrepreneurial learning. To keep yourself grounded, schedule regular decision reviews, not just product reviews, and treat each review as you would a board meeting with investors: specific metrics, clear hypotheses, and a record of what you’ll do differently next time.
- Codify your learning – keep a one-page “founder log” after each major decision.
- Separate identity from outcome – your venture can fail without you being a failure.
- Use constraints strategically – define strict limits on time, capital and attention.
- Build a dissent circle – two or three people mandated to challenge your assumptions.
| Stage | Key Risk | Useful Question |
|---|---|---|
| Idea | Problem-solution fit | “Who is in real pain today?” |
| Launch | Focus drift | “What will we not build this quarter?” |
| Early growth | Culture dilution | “What behaviour gets rewarded here?” |
The Conclusion
As Kacperczyk returns to her work-guiding founders, mentoring students and probing the data behind entrepreneurial success-one theme from our conversation lingers: entrepreneurship is no longer a niche career path, but a central pillar of modern economies.From Warsaw to London, from banking to academia, her journey mirrors the very transitions she studies.
In an environment where disruption is often celebrated more than understood, Kacperczyk’s research offers something rarer: evidence over hype, structure over slogans. For London Business School’s community of aspiring entrepreneurs, investors and executives, her message is clear. The future of entrepreneurship will belong not just to those willing to take risks, but to those who understand the systems, networks and trade-offs that shape which risks are worth taking.
