Objective: Startups are key actors in knowledge-based economies, playing a central role in specialized job creation, knowledge commercialization, and the transition from resource-based to innovation-driven growth. Despite relative infrastructure development in Iran, the high failure rate of startups remains a strategic challenge. The Isfahan startup ecosystem, as the country’s second major knowledge-based hub, has strong potential, yet the sustainability of startups continues to face structural and institutional constraints. The central problem of this study is the absence of an objective, prioritized, and context-specific framework of success factors grounded in the local realities of Isfahan. Previous studies have largely remained descriptive or purely qualitative. Accordingly, this research aims to explore the factors associated with startup success and determine their mathematical weights using Shannon’s entropy technique in order to provide an evidence-based framework for enhancing ecosystem resilience. Adopting an economic sociology perspective, the study seeks to show that startup success in transitional contexts is shaped more by institutional structures, social networks, and local cultural settings than by purely individual or technical factors.

Method: This applied study employed a mixed-methods (qualitative–quantitative) design conducted in two independent and sequential phases. In the qualitative phase, the population consisted of active knowledge-based, creative, and technology-oriented startups in Isfahan. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling until theoretical saturation was reached with 14 founders and managers. Data were collected via in-depth semi-structured interviews (average duration: 60 minutes) and analyzed using thematic analysis within the thematic networks approach (Attride-Stirling, 2001) with MAXQDA 2020. Credibility and dependability were ensured through member checking and external auditing. In the quantitative phase, data were extracted directly from the qualitative output. The decision matrix was constructed with rows representing the 14 founders/managers and columns representing the indicators derived from thematic analysis. Each entry (x_ij) indicated the frequency of occurrence of indicator $j$ in the interview of participant $i$. Prioritization was performed using Shannon’s entropy technique in five steps.

Results: Thematic analysis yielded five organizing themes and eleven basic themes around the global theme of “startup success in the Isfahan ecosystem.” The organizing themes are: legal contexts, institutional factors, socio-cultural factors, environmental contexts, and interpersonal networks. Shannon entropy calculations showed that the distribution of weights is not uniform. Legal contexts ranked first with a weight of 0.462 in terms of information load and discriminative power, followed by institutional factors (0.227), socio-cultural factors (0.156), environmental contexts (0.084), and interpersonal networks (0.072). At the basic-theme level, the shift in the government’s role from interventionist to facilitator carried the highest information load. These findings are based on the perceptions of the 14 founders and managers, and the weights reflect information load and discriminative power rather than causal impact.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that, in terms of information load and discriminative power, institutional and legal variables carry higher weights than micro-level factors in founders’ and managers’ perceptions of factors associated with startup success. The high weight of legal contexts and the facilitating role of government suggests that, within Iran’s unstable institutional environment, institutional reinvention can play an important role in creating conditions for entrepreneurial opportunity creation. This result is consistent with opportunity creation theory and strengthens existing evidence. Policymakers are advised to focus on establishing more stable legal frameworks and reducing disruptive interventions rather than relying primarily on short-term financial support.