Heading for new shores: Crowdsourcing for entrepreneurial opportunity creation

In this conceptual paper, we propose crowdsourcing for opportunity creation as a new field of further research in both in the information systems and entrepreneurship domain. Building on previous re-search on entrepreneurial opportunity creation, we elaborate on the benefits of employing a crowdsourcing approach to reduce uncertainty and iteratively develop an opportunity into a new ven-ture. Based on this assessment we develop a research agenda that highlights the need to adapt previous crowdsourcing mechanisms for the special context of entrepreneurial opportunity creation. In doings so, we expand research of crowdsourcing to the field of entrepreneurship by extending the principles of crowdsourcing for innovation for entrepreneurial opportunity creation. Further, by highlighting the requirements of crowdsourcing for opportunity creation, we point towards potential future research issues. Such research should examine novel participation architectures that enable the iterative co-creation of an opportunity through different maturity stages, thereby overcoming the limitations of previous crowdsourcing efforts that rather focus on the generation of novel ideas than its evolution. Finally, we propose crowdsourcing as a practical way for entrepreneurs to validate their assumptions about their opportunity, thereby achieving fast and early product-market fit.