The entrepreneurial event is a contingency from which entrepreneurial behaviour precipitates. It is a temporal confluence among some external cue that implies an extant, potential, or possible opportunity; a perception of the cue implications; and, an entrepreneurial response. It begins with recognizing and evaluating an opportunity and ends with a venture concept and entity to harness that opportunity (Stevenson, Roberts & Grousbeck, 1989). New venture creation is, thus, the product of a decision process. And, these decisions are often fraught with biases (Wickham, 2003).

      This raises an important question. What conditions dictate practicable reasons for starting a new venture? Heretofore, the corpus of new venture contributions has focused on the variables that seem associated with launch decisions. Conspicuously absent is an examination of the decisions themselves and the conditions that dictate if they reflect objectively sound judgment. This paper explores these decisions through the lenses of reality, feasibility, and desirability.

      Keywords: new venture, entrepreneur, decision making, SME, business failure