Searcher Sentiment During the ETA Journey: Baseline Findings from a Longitudinal Study
Mark Agnew, A. J. Wasserstein. (2026)
Yale Case, no number printed, September 30, 2026
Sample. "In spring 2026, we looked for new searchers planning to launch in 2026, across every structure and geography, and 83 responded." (p2), recruited through investors, MBA clubs, ETA faculty and social media. 31-question Qualtrics survey plus an eight-item grit scale and an optional 60-item HEXACO personality module (53 opted in). Planned as nine waves over two years. Structure (figure, p6): traditionally funded 54 (65%), self-funded 13 (16%), accelerator 6, holding company 6, other 4. 35% searching outside the U.S. and Canada. "We cannot know what share of the 2026 search launches our sample represents" (p3). Headline numbers. Self-estimated odds of acquiring: "the average answer is 78%, the median is 80%" (n = 79, p8), against "The current marketplace SAR sits in the 30% to 50% range, so a reader could call 78% hubris." (p9). Stress "an average of 4.8 and a median of 5.0 on a 0-to-10 scale" (p7). Motivation: "Wealth creation ranks last among the four named drivers at 16%, behind the opportunity to operate and run a business at 36%" (p5). Funding: "The majority of our sample lives on a formal search stipend (61%), while 18% are bolstered by their partner's income, and 13% pay the full freight out of pocket." (p6). Self-funded: "The self-funded searchers have longer financial runways (5 of 13 report five years or more)." (p6 to p7). Grit mean 3.96 against a published adult average of about 3.4. Limits. Authors: opt-in, self-reported, single point in time before any outcome; "interpret the data presented here as directional until the later waves."; the authors suspect the real 2026 field has more self-funded launches than their 16%. Reader's notes: self-funded (n = 13) is folded into "other structures" in every statistical cut; the text says no t-test is significant while its own table flags two at the 10% level; a footnote states "We used Claude Opus 5 for the statistical analysis in this note."