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Stanford + Stripe Study of Internet Entrepreneurship

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Jan 2019 to Dec 2023

Researchers

Sponsor

Stripe; Kauffman Foundation

Project Goal

The Survey of Internet Entrepreneurship is a collaboration between Stanford University and Stripe, a leading online payments platform, to improve our understanding of entrepreneurship in the modern economy. The project seeks to provide data-driven insights that can inform better decision-making by entrepreneurs, policymakers, and investors around the world, and ultimately to expand economic opportunities related to the rise of the internet.

We will undertake a large-scale online survey of entrepreneurs, followed by subsequent rounds of panel surveys.

Objectives

Online commerce has generated a growing wave of new entrepreneurship that is reshaping industries around the world. Unfortunately, data limitations have made it difficult to understand how online businesses emerge and grow, and how policymakers can facilitate this process. The Survey of Internet Entrepreneurship seeks to fill this gap by developing a major new recurring survey of entrepreneurs accepting online payments. The survey will shed light on how the internet is changing entrepreneurship, how people transition into starting online businesses, what barriers prevent some groups from fully participating in these new economic opportunities, and other key questions.

The data will be collected through a 10-minute online survey, followed by quarterly 5-minute surveys.

Why participate in this survey?

This survey will help to improve research and policy discussions around fostering entrepreneurship, understanding the dynamics of new business creation and growth, and the impact of the internet on entrepreneurship. We will also compensate respondents for their time.

Is the data confidential?

Stanford University and Stripe place the highest priority on protecting users’ data privacy. All your responses will be kept strictly confidential. The data are stored on a secure server and can only be accessed under strict security procedures on Stripe’s internal systems. Your individual privacy will be maintained in all published and written results based on the study. Stripe may use research based on aggregate results of this survey to inform general business and strategy decisions but will not make use of data on individual companies or respondents in any way.

Time involvement

Your participation will take approximately 10 minutes the first time you participate, and then 5 minutes every quarter should you wish to continue to participate thereafter.

Participants’ rights

Participation in this project is voluntary and respondents have the right to withdraw their consent or discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which they are otherwise entitled. Should you decide to participate, you have the right to refuse to answer particular questions. As mentioned above, your individual privacy will be maintained in all published and written data resulting from the study, and Stripe will only make use of results based on aggregate data, not data on individual companies or respondents.

Risks and benefits

Should you wish to participate, we will share final research results as well as aggregated cross-tabulations of the results with you so that you can see how your responses compare with those of other respondents. More broadly, you will be helping to improve understanding of internet entrepreneurship, which will hopefully lead to more successful public policies and business outcomes. However, we cannot and do not guarantee or promise that you will receive any benefits from this study. Your decision whether or not to participate in this study will not affect your rights or relationship with Stripe in any way.


Stanford Researchers

Nicholas Blook

Nicholas Bloom
nbloom@stanford.edu

Mihai Codreanu

Mihai Codreanu 
mihaic@stanford.edu

Robert Fletcher

Robert Fletcher
rsfletch@stanford.edu


Stripe Researchers

Ana-Maria Mocanu

Ana-Maria Mocanu 
anamaria@stripe.com 

An He

An He 
anhe@stripe.com