Decision-making during the entrepreneurial process requires adapting to dynamic situational shifts while navigating uncertain and ill-structured environments that impact the economic success of new ventures This study applies a cognitive task analysis approach with nine active, serial entrepreneurs, that have launched 49 startups between them, to examine the critical decisions involved in noticing and evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities in their daily practice when there is too much or limited information. We identify seven cognitive task situations embedded in the value-creating schema utilized by the entrepreneurs: (1) Observing the status quo, (2) Assessing personal interest level, (3) Exploring the problem space, (4) Assessing the ROI of time/effort required, (5) Estimating the value for customers, (6) Identifying others to de-risk the opportunity, and (7) Taking action to build momentum. Each of these cognitive tasks has a set of heuristics for rapid decision-making used as part of the procedural knowledge of the value-creating schema to determine when the composition of cues merits further opportunity development. This set of relation structures provides insight into the abstract schematic mechanisms that facilitate the use of adaptive expertise to reactively and proactively interact with an ill-structured and dynamic environment to accomplish the task.
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