Abstract
Software startups face with multiple technical and business challenges, which could make the startup journey longer, or even become a failure. Little is known about entrepreneurial decision making as a direct force to startup development outcome. In this study, we attempted to apply a behavior theory of entrepreneurial firms to understand the root-cause of some software startup’s challenges. Six common challenges related to prototyping and product development in twenty software startups were identified. We found the behavior theory as a useful theoretical lens to explain the technical challenges. Software startups search for local optimal solutions, emphasize on short-run feedback rather than long-run strategies, which results in vague prototype planning, paradox of demonstration and evolving throw-away prototypes. The finding implies that effectual entrepreneurial processes might require a more suitable product development approach than the current state-of-practice.
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Duc, A.N., Dahle, Y., Steinert, M., Abrahamsson, P. (2017). Towards Understanding Startup Product Development as Effectual Entrepreneurial Behaviors. In: Ojala, A., Holmström Olsson, H., Werder, K. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2017. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 304. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69191-6_15
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