THE ROLE OF ENTREPRENEUR’S EXPERIENCE ON THE SUCCESS OF CROWDFUNDING IN AFRICA

Crowdfunding is increasingly becoming dominant in providing funding for entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Inexperienced entrepreneurs can lead to poorly created campaigns, inadequate marketing strategies, and ineffective communication with potential backers. As a result, projects may fail to reach their funding goals, limiting access to capital for innovative ideas and delaying economic growth. Hence, this study investigates the influence of entrepreneurs' experience on the success of crowdfunding projects in Africa. Based on signalling and human capital theories, it investigates how an experienced entrepreneur signals competence and credibility to potential backers to maximise the probability of crowdfunding success.

Additionally, examine the role of management experience, expertise and knowledge of crowdfunding success. A quantitative research approach and a quantitative analysis of crowdfunding campaigns across various African platforms were employed. Drawing from secondary cross-section data from Kickstarter and Indiegogo, this research uses the probit regression method to analyse and test the hypotheses. The results revealed that entrepreneurs’ experiences of frequently asked questions and the presence of images have positively influenced crowdfunding success. Conversely, targeted amounts and longer duration have negatively affected the crowdfunding success. The findings reveal that entrepreneurs with experience tend to achieve higher crowdfunding success rates. This study contributes to the relative lack of research on crowdfunding in Africa by highlighting the importance of entrepreneurs' experience in crowdfunding success. It provides knowledge for entrepreneurs and investors, focusing on the role that experience plays when managing the complexity of crowdfunding platforms in the African context. The findings are based on signalling and human capital theories. However, the findings cannot be generalised to other developed economies.