Drawing on the literature on strategic entrepreneurship and founder social identities, we use a configurational approach to study how new ventures’ entrepreneurial and strategic behaviors combine with founder social identities to explain new venture performance. Our analysis of 60 founders shows that founders can take different pathways to success and that founders who do not primarily pursue economic value creation can still achieve high new venture performance through distinct combinations of entrepreneurial and strategic behaviors. Our empirical findings and corresponding propositions advance the literature on strategic entrepreneurship and founder social identities in important ways.
