Commercialization Skills: Necessity for High Technology Entrepreneurs in Digital Era

As Fourth revolution evolves, digitalization enables development and diffusion of new high technologies. Hence, it is essential to have knowledge on commercialization competence, which assists entrepreneurs to transform their inventions/innovations into consumable products/services. Therefore, this study investigates commercialization skills and their importance for entrepreneurs in digital era. A qualitative method was used via interview. Business advisors and developers in Finland were interviewed. The results revealed that presentation/pitching, regulatory, information analysis, social media, and negotiation skills are necessary for high technology entrepreneurs. The results also affirmed that entrepreneurship, marketing, and business management skills, which are previously discussed by scholars and practitioners, are also needed. With these results, this study contributes to the discourse of commercialization and entrepreneurship education.