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This paper focuses on the nascent entrepreneurial process from an identity-based perspective. We build on research in the role identity, entrepreneurship, and career literature to develop a multi-dimensional concept of entrepreneurial identity. We link entrepreneurial identity to the nascent process by detailing how it influences the way individuals explore an opportunity or business idea, interpret environmental feedback, and evaluate alternatives. Through these processes, entrepreneurial identity influences key outcomes of the nascent stage, including whether nascents persist or abandon their efforts to become entrepreneurs.