Abstract This study investigates whether ambitions amongst nascent entrepreneurs regarding innovativeness matter for the national level of innovativeness. We link ambitious nascent entrepreneurship to the national level of innovativeness for 36 countries, using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. We find a significant positive relation between the level of nascent entrepreneurs who intend to offer a product or service that is new to all or to some of their customers and the national technology level. This may suggest that ambitions to offer new products or services tend to contribute to higher levels of competition and knowledge spillovers, and consequently to the emergence of highly innovative economies. Our results also suggest that this relationship is less strong in poor countries.