Abstract:

The early investor experience provides the subsequent investors with the judgment basis of project quality， and then determines the behavior mode of crowdfunding financiers and investors. In order to analyze the impact of early investor experience on the financing performance of online financing projects and the differences of participation strategies of financiers facing different experienced investors， a model with future popularity and project reputation as mediate variables is constructed. Thus， the following two key research questions are put forward： （1） How does the early investor experience affect the future popularity， reputation and financing performance of the crowdfunding projects？ Does future popularity and project reputation play a mediate role in this process？ （2） Can entrepreneurs only passively accept the impact of early investor experience？ Would some measures be taken to reduce or enhance this impact？ The impact of pre-investor's experience on the late-stage popularity， future reputation， financial performance and fundraising outcomes of the crowdfunding projects is analyzed based on the chronological order of investor investment， with empirical data. And the model Popularit{y}_{it}={\alpha }_{\mathrm{1}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{1}a}Popularit{y}_{it-\mathrm{1}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{1}b}Expertis{e}_{it-\mathrm{1}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{1}c}Participatio{n}_{it-\mathrm{1}}\times Expertis{e}_{it-\mathrm{1}}+{\gamma }_{\mathrm{1}}PT{C}_{it}+{\delta }_{\mathrm{1}}P{C}_i+{\epsilon }_{it} is employed to estimate the influence of popularity， while Evaluatio{n}_i={\alpha }_{\mathrm{2}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{2}a}Expertis{e}_{i\mathrm{1}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{2}b}Participatio{n}_{i\mathrm{1}}\times Expertis{e}_{i\mathrm{1}}+{\gamma }_{\mathrm{2}}PT{C}_i+{\delta }_{\mathrm{2}}P{C}_i+{\epsilon }_i is adopted to measure the impact of reputation. Then， Logit(Statu{s}_i)={\alpha }_{\mathrm{3}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{3}a}Expertis{e}_{i\mathrm{1}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{3}b}Popularit{y}_{i\mathrm{1}}+{\gamma }_{\mathrm{3}}PT{C}_i+{\delta }_{\mathrm{3}}P{C}_i+{\epsilon }_i and Progres{s}_i={\alpha }_{\mathrm{4}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{4}a}Expertis{e}_{i\mathrm{1}}+{\beta }_{\mathrm{4}b}Popularit{y}_{i\mathrm{1}}+{\gamma }_{\mathrm{4}}PT{C}_i+{\delta }_{\mathrm{4}}P{C}_i+{\epsilon }_i are built to estimate the financing performance， with success or failure （Pledge Result （1=success）） and financing progress （NumProgress） as dependent variable， respectively. The observation window contains 602，412 investors' real investment data from China with 896，407 investment behaviors on 6，420 crowdfunding projects， from 2009 to 2018. Data analysis methods are used to explore investors' investment behavior according to investment time. Data analytics， sentiment analysis， text mining and econometric models are employed to analyze the impact of investor experience on the online financing projects from time series model and panel data model. The text mining technology provides a technical approach for such discussion texts， online reviews and update texts， and this kind of discussion and update strategy is related to the experience of previous investors. The results show that the early investor experience has a positive impact on the financing performance of crowdfunding projects， and the future popularity and project reputation play a partial mediate role in the impact of the early investor experience on the financing performance of online financing projects. The results also indicate that experienced investors play a similar role as opinion leaders， guide follow-up investors， help to improve the popularity and reputation of the project in the future， and make the project achieve higher financing performance. Furthermore， in the financing process， the founder does not passively accept the investment， but can participate in the discussion or update the project in a proactive manner. That is， it is found that if the early investors have rich experience， less update and intervention will help the financing performance to improve； while if the early investors lack experience， the founders need to actively participate in the online discussion and text updates. In addition to the guiding role of previous investor experience in subsequent users， the experience of previous investors has an alternative effect on the social participation and updates. This study enriches the understanding of investor experience and rational cluster behavior， theoretically enriches the understanding of investor experience and improves the application of behavior science and decision science in the field of entrepreneurship； it also provides a participation strategy for entrepreneurs of online financing projects in practice.

Key words: crowdfunding, investor experience, fundraising outcomes, popularity, project reputation