Author(s): Mary Ejiehi Ezema, Omotayo Adeniyi Adegbuyi, Felicia Omowunmi Olokoyo
The practice of entrepreneurship is entrenched in the conception and exploration of new business ideas. Among other factors, lack of viable and efficient new business ideas has also led to the failure of many start-ups. This ultimately impacts negatively on the capacity of entrepreneurs to generate employment especially in emerging economies such as Nigeria where the private sector is becoming very pivotal. Of particular interest is the emergence of faith based organisations (FBOs) as key players in the mobilisation of budding entrepreneurs through training and other activities. Given the importance of business idea generation (BIG) to the success of start-ups, this paper examines the relationship between BIG and sustainable start-up performance using the products of the entrepreneurship activities of FBOs in a Nigerian context. The study made use of questionnaire as main data collection instrument. Data were collected from trainees of three selected FBO entrepreneurship programmes who have started their business. The data were subjected to relevant statistical analysis, including descriptive statistics using SPSS version 25. Hypotheses were analysed using structural equation model (SEM). The findings showed that business idea has a significant relationship with sustainable start-up performance (new product development, perceived customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, productivity and competitive positioning). However, it was discovered that productivity has the most predictive value at (β= 0.669, R2=0.448, t-statistics=10.953>1.96, P-value =0.000 <0.05). This study concluded that a good business idea would sustain business continuity that can eradicate poverty, generate employment and improve economic empowerment, reinforcing economic, social and possibly environmental sustainability.