Search results for "software startup"
showing 10 items of 13 documents
The Startup Scratch Book – Opening the Black Box of Startup Education
2021
Teaching entrepreneurship and startups is a challenging task. Approaches using real or simulated entrepreneurship as a teaching method are also common in startup education. However, as educators and researchers, we typically only observe the outcomes of the startup journey between weekly lectures and other meetings, whereas the actions taken by the student teams can seldom be observed. This makes the process a black box. All valuable learnings, realizations, and big ideas happen in the students’ minds, and little evidence exists to say what happened during the course. As a result, we are entirely missing out on the most critical elements of the learning process. To remedy this issue, we pro…
Software Startup Practices -- Software Development in Startups through the Lens of the Essence Theory of Software Engineering
2020
Software startups continue to be important drivers of economy globally. As the initial investment required to found a new software company becomes smaller and smaller resulting from technological advances such as cloud technology, increasing numbers of new software startups are born. Typically, the main argument for studying software startups is that they differ from mature software organizations in various ways, thus making the findings of many existing studies not directly applicable to them. How, exactly, software startups really differ from other types of software organizations as an on-going debate. In this paper, we seek to better understand how software startups differ from mature so…
Amidst Uncertainty–or Not? : Decision-Making in Early-Stage Software Startups
2019
It is commonly claimed that the initial stages of any startup business are dominated by continuous, extended uncertainty, in an environment that has even been described as chaotic. Consequently, decisions are made in uncertain circumstances, so making the right decision is crucial to successful business. However, little currently exists in the way of empirical studies into this supposed uncertainty. In this paper, we study decision-making in early-stage software startups by means of a single, in-depth case study. Based on our data, we argue that software startups do not work in a chaotic environment, nor are they characterized by unique uncertainty unlike that experienced by other firms. pe…
The entrepreneurial logic of startup software development : A study of 40 software startups
2021
Context: Software startups are an essential source of innovation and software-intensive products. The need to understand product development in startups and to provide relevant support are highlighted in software research. While state-of-the-art literature reveals how startups develop their software, the reasons why they adopt these activities are underexplored. Objective: This study investigates the tactics behind software engineering (SE) activities by analyzing key engineering events during startup journeys. We explore how entrepreneurial mindsets may be associated with SE knowledge areas and with each startup case. Method: Our theoretical foundation is based on causation and effectuatio…
100+ Metrics for Software Startups : A Multi-Vocal Literature Review
2019
Metrics can be used by businesses to make more objective decisions based on data. Software startups in particular are characterized by the uncertain or even chaotic nature of the contexts in which they operate. Using data in the form of metrics can help software startups to make the right decisions amidst uncertainty and limited resources. However, whereas conventional business metrics and software metrics have been studied in the past, metrics in the spe-cific context of software startup are not widely covered within academic literature. To promote research in this area and to create a starting point for it, we have conducted a multi-vocal literature review focusing on practitioner literat…
Software startup education: gamifying growth hacking
2021
Startups seek to create highly scalable business models. For startups, growth is thus vital. Growth hacking is a marketing strategy advocated by various startup practitioner experts. It focuses on using low cost practices while utilizing existing platforms in creative ways to gain more users for the service. Though topics related to growth hacking such as marketing on a general level have been extensively studied in the past, growth hacking as a practitioner-born topic has not seen much interest among the academia. To both spark interest in growth hacking, and to facilitate teaching growth hacking in the academia, we present two board games intended to serve as an engaging introduction to g…
Business Model Canvas Should Pay More Attention to the Software Startup Team
2020
Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a tool widely used to describe startup business models. Despite the various business aspects described, BMC pays a little emphasis on team- related factors. The importance of team-related factors in software development has been acknowledged widely in literature. While not as extensively studied, the importance of teams in software startups is also known in both literature and among practitioners. In this paper, we propose potential changes to BMC to have the tool better reflect the importance of the team, especially in a software startup environment. Based on a literature review, we identify various components related to the team, which we then further suppor…
Internal Software Startups - A Multiple Case Study on Practices, Methods, and Success Factors
2020
Startups are often seen as drivers of innovation. In an attempt to leverage this potential, larger business organizations have founded internal startups as a subset of internal corporate ventures (ICV). These smaller organizations are intended to be more agile than the parent organization, in order to produce new service and product innovations using their own methods and practices independently of the organizational culture and methods of the parent organization. However, our understanding of ICVs is still lacking in terms of processes and success factors, and especially the more recent internal startups have scarcely been studied thus far. To approach this novel area of research, we take …
An empirical evaluation of business model canvas in software startups : a team perspective
2019
Business model canvas is a commonly used tool among software startups. The tool aims to help companies develop business models and new strategies. Even though the model has been widely adapted among software startups a lack of scientific research regarding the topic can be found. This thesis evaluates how the business model canvas should be further devel- oped when it comes to early stage software startups. This is done with a team perspective. First, an understanding of software startups is created. Secondly, based on the literature the Team Component is presented including the con- structs of resources, networks, self-organization and way of working. After this, the scope is widened to bu…
Software startup education around the world : A preliminary analysis
2018
New software startups are born everyday around the world. Nonetheless, failure is the fate of most of them. The community already knows that several facts, such as market competition or lack of resources, can impact the destiny of a startup. However, little has been explored in term of the impact of software startup education on the success of failure of startups. In this sense, this study presents the initial steps that we are taking to understand how software startups are taught around the world. To do so, we design a qualitative survey aimed at software startup educators at Universities. Our goal is to gather enough information so we can help the academic community in improving their own…