The Entrepreneurial Standards Forum's mission is to improve the interface between investors and entrepreneurs, by:
- uncovering the entrepreneurial processes and behaviors that most closely correlate to success, and
- developing standards based on these processes.
These standards can be used by entrepreneurs to optimize their business concepts, and by investors to make better investment decisions.
Current Projects
ESF activity is focused in these areas:
- The Entrepreneurship Database: The ESF is building a comprehensive database of entrepreneurial experience. This database captures four types of information: success factors (whether the company achieved specific criteria for success), market and strategy, investors and investment, and the entrepreneur and team. Analyzing these factors across companies highlights patterns for success, shedding light on why some companies succeed and others fail.
- The ESF Benchmark Survey: The ESF Benchmark Survey is a survey instrument used to capture data about entrepreneurial ventures, for the Entrepreneurship Database and for use with risk assessment audits.
- ESF Benchmark Audits: ESF Benchmark Audits are processes through which an entrepreneur's business concept is evaluated against the benchmark of successful companies in the Entrepreneurship Database. Note that all companies in the ESF Benchmark database have been audited, and that the only way a company's Benchmark Survey results can get in the database is for the company to have a Benchmark Audit.
