Facilitating Opportunity Development: Increasing Understanding of the Lean Startup Approach in Early Stage High-Tech Entrepreneurship

Master's Thesis , 2011 , 140 Pages , Grade: 1.0

Business economics - Company formation, Business Plans

The research objective of this study was to explore how the startup idea development progress was experienced by entrepreneurs and how the Lean Startup Approach (LSA) affected that progress in early stage high-tech entrepreneurship. The Lean Startup movement has gained a lot of traction not only in the Silicon Valley area, but also to some extent in Europe. However, with increasing popularity, criticism starts to get formulated as well. Due to the limited coverage of the LSA, its principles and related management practices in academic literature, it remains difficult to critically assess the validity and effectiveness of the proposed concept. With this study, light is shed on the LS phenomenon by interviewing representative high-tech entrepreneurs and leading proponents of the LS principles and practices.

In order to better understand LS principles at work with an emphasis on experienced startup idea development progress, semi-structure interviews with seven Lean Startup Machine (LSM) event participants as well as one mentoring subject matter expert were conducted. The interviewed practitioners were purposely selected from the most and least performing teams according to the appraisal of the LSM event judges. The main reason for choosing the LSM event is the fact that the LSM projects, while somewhat artificial, do provide condensed versions of real life startups, which provides a high information to effort ratio to me as a researcher. Furthermore, a LSA survey tailored to the opportunity development process and a post-LSM-event survey were conducted.

The purpose of the multiple mini-cases study (which treated each team working on an entrepreneurial idea as a mini-case) was to explore the opportunity development progress and the role of LS principles and practices from the perspective of consumer Internet high-tech entrepreneurs and LS proponents (mentors) in a highly time-constrained real world LS practitioner event in the USA. Learning about how participants of the event perceived and experienced development progress and the LSA provided insights into the relevance of the LS methodology as a means to accelerate the development progress of an early stage startup idea towards a viable opportunity.

Table of Contents

Preface

List of Figures

List of Tables

Table of Attachments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Problem Statement
Background and Need
Objective of the Study
Research Questions
Significance to the Field
Definitions
Thesis Outline and Approach

Literature Review
Introduction and Approach
Entrepreneurship Theory and Entrepreneurial Process
Lean Startup Approach
Notion of the Lean Startup
Key principles
Key management practices

Research Methodology
Research Strategy
Research Design
Setting, case and participant selection
Data collection
Data analysis
Case study protocol and case study database
Ethical considerations
Evaluation of the Research Design
Summary

Results and Discussion
Lean Startup Approach Survey
Results
Discussion
Case Study Analysis
Case and participant description
Disparity in productivity
Lean Startup Approach effect on opportunity development progress
Lean Startup Approach effect on team performance
Discussion
Derived Model Instance

Conclusion
Summary of Major Findings
Implications
Practice
Research
Limitations
Future work

Appendices

Appendix A: Research Context

Appendix B: Literature Review

Appendix C: Research Methodology

Appendix D: Results

List of References

• College: Technical University of Munich
• Course: Entrepreneurial Opportunity Development
• Grade: 1.0
• Author: Christian Kählig (Author)
• Publication Year: 2011
• Pages: 140
• Catalog Number: V174625
• ISBN (eBook): 9783640951079
• ISBN (Book): 9783640950423
• Language: English
• Tags: Entrepreneurship, Opportunity, Startup, High-Tech Entrepreneurship, Opportunity Development, Lean Startup, Methodology, Customer Development, Early Stage, Frühphase, Unternehmertum, Prozess, Process, Innovation, Innovation Management, Geschäftsidee, Ideen, Ideenmanagement, Idea, Idea Development, Business Idea, Business