{"id":1096,"slug":"cooper-woo-dunkelberg-1988-entrepreneur-overconfidence-81pct-33pct","title":"Cooper, Woo, Dunkelberg 1988 (JBV) — 2,994 entrepreneurs; 81% rated odds of success 7+/10; 33% rated 10/10 vs ~50% 5-year base-rate failure","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["psychology-aversion","entrepreneur-cognition"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Cooper, Woo, and Dunkelberg (1988) surveyed **2,994 entrepreneurs** who had recently opened businesses (NFIB membership). The findings:\n\n- **81% rated their odds of success at 7/10 or better.**\n- **33% rated their odds at 10/10** — a perfect certainty of success.\n\nBase rate: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Business Employment Dynamics indicates approximately **49.8% of all private-sector businesses fail within five years**, with construction \"consistently ranking among the lowest\" industries for establishment survival rates.\n\n**Source:** Cooper, A. C., Woo, C. Y., & Dunkelberg, W. C. (1988). \"Entrepreneurs' perceived chances for success.\" *Journal of Business Venturing* 3(2): 97–108. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0883902688900201\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**For Candid:** The magnitude of the overconfidence gap is the operative number. A third of new-business owners think their odds are 100%. Construction has worse-than-average survival. The owner-operator GC across the desk is operating with a baseline self-assessment **at least 30 percentage points above the base rate** — and that same overconfidence transfers cleanly to the \"I can build this in-house\" judgment.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"research-brief-risk-aversion-post-failure-may-2026","title":"Research brief: risk aversion, loss aversion, and post-failure decision patterns in GC and trades-business decision-makers (May 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"overconfidence-in-house-comparator-pattern-for-gc-pitches","title":"The \"my nephew can build it\" pattern — loss-aversion on the invoice + overconfidence on in-house execution as mechanistically linked","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"rule-surface-and-reframe-in-house-comparator","title":"R4 — Surface and reframe the in-house comparator; the implicit competitor is \"my cousin / my admin\"; reframe it as a bet with its own probability of failure","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:30.985Z","updated_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:30.985Z"}