This Palgrave Pivot examines the essence of competence value in corporate and small business finance, offering empirical evidence to better understand financial practices within entrepreneurial settings. Mantovani suggests an innovative methodology to detect the financial value of entrepreneurial capabilities. He shows how the concept of competence value and T-ratio, its measurement tool, are necessary to arrange sound entrepreneurial finance deals. This book opens with an analysis of how entrepreneurial skills contribute to the economics of entrepreneurial business, and then provides a financial background to estimate the competence value even when the financial markets fail to do so. The book goes on to introduce the idea of an entrepreneurial life-cycle made of stages based on the transformation of human skills into competitive hallmarks. Applications across a large sample of companies and Mantovani's concluding suggestions about the financial practice make this book essential to both academics and executives. Guido M. Mantovani is Professor of Corporate Finance at Ca' Foscari University's Treviso and Venice campuses in Italy, and President of the HERMES Universities network in Strasbourg, France. He has published in Italy and internationally on topics of contingent-claim finance, corporate risk management, and information risks. More recently, his research efforts have focused on entrepreneurial finance, the financial valuation of human capital, and the integrated rating of small and medium enterprises. .