Purpose Strategic entrepreneurship (SE) is effective in the formation of business strategies that involve simultaneous opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking behaviors. SE revitalizes firms to achieve competitive advantage in the current turbulent markets. The purpose of this paper is to understand in more detail how SE influences business growth (BG) through the lens of dynamic capabilities (DC) theory. Design/methodology/approach Using a quantitative research method and structural equation modeling technique, the measurement and structural models were developed to test the research hypotheses. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 159 internet of thing (IoT)-based companies in Iran. Findings The findings show that DC theory provides the theoretical underpinning to describe the effect of SE and its dimensions on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition (EOR). Results also reveal that EOR mediates the relationship between SE and BG. Furthermore, this research empirically verifies that organizational entrepreneurship and value creation moderate the relationship between EOR and BG. Originality/value IoT identifies a pathway for continuous change that helps to improve firms’ competitiveness and innovation. This paper provides a new insight into how Iranian IoT-based companies can enhance their SE to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities and gain competitive advantage. Mainly, this study singles out and discusses the variegated features that characterize the implementation of SE by Iranian IoT-based companies having different characteristics.