We develop theory about how and when digital technologies enable new venture creation processes. We identify two fundamental properties of digital technologies-specificity and relationality-and develop propositions that link these properties to six enabling mechanisms: compression, conservation, expansion, substitution, combination, and generation. We use the linked properties and mechanisms to determine how and when in the venture creation process-from prospecting to developing to exploiting-digital technologies have enabled start-ups in the IT hardware sector and develop stage-dependent propositions about their sector-level effects. We conclude our theorizing by discussing its implications beyond digital technologies and the IT hardware sector.