Entrepreneurship theorists have long acknowledged that entrepreneurial competencies are linked to venture performance (Chandler and Jansen, 1992; Man et al., 2002). However, this insight has rarely been extended to understand the antecedent process of how entrepreneurial competencies are gained prior to venture formation (Rasmussen et al., 2011). To extend theory on entrepreneurial competencies, it is therefore important to focus on the early stage of the entrepreneurial journey (Chandler and Lyon, 2009; McMullen and Dimov, 2013). Building on Man et al. (2002) and Rasmussen et al. (2011), we define entrepreneurial competencies as higher-level, improvable characteristics entailing personality traits, skills, and knowledge that bring about the ability to accomplish something through the use of resources. To become competent means, in the words of Hayton and Kelley (2006, p. 413), “to be able to behave effectively in a particular performance domain, occupation, or activity”, which in the context of this article refers to the ability of an entrepreneur to identify and combine resources to start a venture. Understanding the dynamics shaping the development of entrepreneurial competencies raises theoretically intriguing questions as to how entrepreneurs gain competencies, and, more fundamentally, about the extent to which entrepreneurial competencies are the result of individual or contextual factors (Rasmussen et al., 2014, 2015). We contribute to this line of research by examining the development of entrepreneurial competencies prior to venture formation. In so doing, we address an important gap in the entrepreneurship literature (Wright, 2014). While research has paid attention to competency development post venture formation (Baker et al., 2003; Chandler et al., 2005; Rasmussen et al., 2011), we know that key resource and asset-formation decisions (e.g., about human resources or business models) that have significant impacts on subsequent venture performance are often taken before a venture has begun (Chandler et al., 2005; Kaplan et al., 2009). Understanding the early process of competency development is hence crucial to our understanding of (later) entrepreneurial behaviors and venture performance.