Many Roads Lead to Rome: How Human, Social, and Financial Capital Are Related to New Venture Survival Christian Linder 1 , Christian Lechner 2 , and Frank Pelzel 3 Abstract Given variance in entrepreneurs’ capital endowments, the question of sufficient (or insufficient) starting conditions enabling a pathway to survival is critical in entrepreneurship. Drawing on the subjectivist theory of entrepreneurship (STE), we adopt a configurational approach. Our results show how combinations of human and social capital are related to survival while overreliance on financial capital is not. From a subjectivist perspective, we reveal a potential gap between identifying and exploiting an opportunity. The findings provide some novel insights that help reframe conflicting results as to whether capital endowments are substitutes or complements. Keywords subjectivist theory of entrepreneurship, subjectivism, survival, configurational analysis, human capital, social capital, financial capital There might be a large gap between seeing (an opportunity) and acting (on an opportunity). The subjectivist theory of entrepreneurship (STE) understands entrepreneurial behavior as a function of differences in knowledge, resources, opportunity costs, and expectations between founders (Kor, Mahoney, & Michael, 2007). STE argues that a founder will detect and act on opportunities in a subjective way (Shepherd, McMullen, & Jennings, 2007). Therefore, individuals create firms because they subjectively detect an opportunity from a resource point of view and subjec- tively consider the opportunity to be a good fit for themselves. The founder’s personality, human capital (HC), mindset, and judgment all lead to the discovery or framing of an opportunity (Foss, Klein, Kor, & Mahoney, 2008) and, subsequently, to the conviction of having identified an opportunity that is specific to that person (first-person opportunity; Shepherd et al., 2007). 1 Department of Management, ESCP Europe Business School, London, UK 2 Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy 3 Institute for Employment Research, German Federal Employment Agency, Nuremberg, Germany Corresponding Author: Christian Linder, ESCP Europe Business School, London Campus, 527 Finchley Road, London, Hampstead NW3 7BG, UK. Email: chlinder@escpeurope.eu Article Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0) 1–24 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1042258719867558 journals.sagepub.com/home/etp