Taste Before Production: The Role of Judgment in Entrepreneurial Idea Generation

Crafting high-quality ideas is crucial for entrepreneurs to succeed, yet evidence about the factors that shape the idea-generation process is scarce. A long-standing question is whether differences across entrepreneurs in market judgment—the ability to evaluate business ideas—explain differences in ideas’ quality and composition. We conduct an experiment with an intervention that improves subjects’ ability to evaluate an idea’s market potential, finding that improved judgment leads subjects to generate ideas 15% higher in quality and more complete, with stronger effects among initially poorly-calibrated subjects. Our results support a potential mechanism: individuals with developed judgment mentally test more ideas and better filter them before committing to one. Simple training can improve judgment and idea quality, complementing ex-post, experimental methods by reducing the costs of testing ideas.