A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model . While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public , startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential, such as unicorns .
128-408: Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will do the market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype , to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time; hence, sustaining effort is required. Over
256-593: A CRT set. CRT technologies did improve in the late 1990s with advances like true-flat panels and digital controls; these updates were not enough to prevent CRTs from being displaced by flat-panel LCD displays. This low end disruption eventually undermined the sales of physical, high-cost recordings such as records, tapes and CDs. Cameras for classic photography are stand-alone devices. In the same manner, high-resolution digital video recording has replaced film stock , except for high-budget motion pictures and fine art. The rise of digital cameras led Eastman Kodak , one of
384-661: A Stanford's research park became a veritable startup avalanche... Thus, over the course of just 20 years, a mere eight of Shockley's former employees gave forth 65 new enterprises, which then went on to do the same... Startup advocates are also trying to build a community of tech startups in New York City with organizations like NY Tech Meet Up and Built in NYC. In the early 2000s, the patent assets of failed startup companies were being purchased by people known as patent trolls , who assert those patents against companies that might be infringing
512-506: A balanced "risk/reward" profile (in which high risk due to the untested, disruptive innovations is balanced out by high potential returns) and "scalability" (the likelihood that a startup can expand its operations by serving more markets or more customers). Attractive startups generally have lower " bootstrapping " (self-funding of startups by the founders) costs, higher risk, and higher potential return on investment . Successful startups are typically more scalable than an established business, in
640-423: A business partner) in a market with a dominant design (a clear standard is applied in this market). In contrast to this, profile is the originator which has a management style that is highly entrepreneurial and in which a radical invention or a disruptive innovation (totally new standard) is being developed. This profile is set out to be more successful (in finding a business partner) in a market that does not have
768-405: A cause of disruptive innovation, but rather it fosters competitive business models, using Uber as an example. In an interview with Forbes magazine he stated: "Uber helped me realize that it isn’t that being at the bottom of the market is the causal mechanism, but that it’s correlated with a business model that is unattractive to its competitor". Entrepreneur Chris Dixon cited the theory for
896-462: A coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is affordable loss. Because of the lack of information, high uncertainty, and the need to make decisions quickly, founders usually use many heuristics and exhibit biases in their leadership decisions. Entrepreneurs often become overconfident about their startups and their influence on an outcome (case of
1024-485: A company starting out. The minimum viable product can be designed by using selected components of the Business Model Canvas: Concepts from minimum viable products are applied in other aspects of startups and organizations. Using a minimum viable brand (MVB) concept can ensure brand hypotheses are grounded in strategic intent and market insights. Finding other people to create a minimum viable product
1152-490: A company's reputation. Many developers of mobile and digital products are now criticizing the MVP because customers can easily switch between competing products through platforms (e.g. app stores). Also, products that do not offer the expected minimum standard of quality are inferior to competitors that enter the market with a higher standard. A notable limitation of the MVP is rooted in its approach that seeks out to test its ideas to
1280-423: A company's value is based on its technology, it is often equally important for the business owners to obtain intellectual property protection for their idea. The newsmagazine The Economist estimated that up to 75% of the value of US public companies is now based on their intellectual property (up from 40% in 1980). Often, 100% of a small startup company's value is based on its intellectual property. As such, it
1408-420: A discounted price, is an example of disruption innovation because it originates from a low-end customer segment - customers who would not have entered the traditional luxurious market. Misplaced Pages not only disrupted printed paper encyclopedias; it also disrupted digital encyclopedias. Microsoft's Encarta , a 1993 entry into professionally edited digital encyclopedias, was once a major rival to Britannica but
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#17328692857661536-440: A dominant design (established standard). New startups should align themselves to one of the profiles when commercializing an invention to be able to find and be attractive to a business partner. By finding a business partner, a startup has greater chances of success. Startups usually need many different partners to realize their business idea. The commercialization process is often a bumpy road with iterations and new insights during
1664-454: A dysfunctional founding team, a poor business plan, or just a flawed product-market fit as examples of the primary sources of failure. The lack of human and financial resources or even dedicated patent attorneys in the early stages of a startup makes it difficult to compete with larger companies, and likewise increases the time and reduces the probability of patent applications. Failed entrepreneurs, or restarters, who after some time restart in
1792-440: A firm's existing value networks place insufficient value on the disruptive innovation to allow its pursuit by that firm. Meanwhile, start-up firms inhabit different value networks, at least until the day that their disruptive innovation is able to invade the older value network. At that time, the established firm in that network can at best only fend off the market share attack with a me-too entry, for which survival (not thriving)
1920-410: A fledgling value network. Online news site TechRepublic proposes an end using the term, and similar related terms, suggesting that, as of 2014, it is overused jargon. Christensen continues to develop and refine the theory and has accepted that not all examples of disruptive innovation perfectly fit into his theory. For example, he conceded that originating in the low end of the market is not always
2048-399: A foothold in the market. In low-end disruption, the disruptor is focused initially on serving the least profitable customer, who is happy with a good enough product. This type of customer is not willing to pay premium for enhancements in product functionality. Once the disruptor has gained a foothold in this customer segment, it seeks to improve its profit margin. To get higher profit margins,
2176-491: A given business idea would actually be viable and profitable by testing the assumptions behind a product or business idea. The concept can be used to validate a market need for a product and for incremental developments of an existing product. As it tests a potential business model to customers to see how the market would react, it is especially useful for new/startup companies who are more concerned with finding out where potential business opportunities exist rather than executing
2304-499: A good growth rate to an established (sizable) firm. Thus, disruptive technology provides an example of an instance when the common business-world advice to " focus on the customer " (or "stay close to the customer", or "listen to the customer") can be strategically counterproductive. While Christensen argued that disruptive innovations can hurt successful, well-managed companies, O'Ryan countered that "constructive" integration of existing, new, and forward-thinking innovation could improve
2432-488: A huge speed before running out of resources. Proactive actions (experimentation, searching, etc.) enhance a founder's learning to start a company. To learn effectively, founders often formulate falsifiable hypotheses , build a minimum viable product (MVP), and conduct A/B testing . With the key learnings from market validation, design thinking, and lean startup, founders can design a business model. However it's important not to dive into business models too early before there
2560-512: A lack of financing or investor interest. These common mistakes and missteps that happen early in the startup journey can result in failure, but there are precautions entrepreneurs can take to help mitigate risk. For example, startup studios offer a buffer against many of the obstacles that solo entrepreneurs face, such as funding and insufficient team structure, making them a good resource for startups in their earliest phases. Another large study of 160.000 failed companies, identified key factors such as
2688-403: A long tradition of identifying radical technological change in the study of innovation by economists, and its implementation and execution by its management at a corporate or policy level. According to Christensen, "the term 'disruptive innovation' is misleading when it is used to refer to the derivative, or 'instantaneous value', of the market behavior of the product or service, rather than
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#17328692857662816-552: A low-end or new market footholds. One of the conditions for the business to be considered disruptive according to Clayton M. Christensen is that the business should originate on a) low-end or b) new-market footholds. Instead, Uber was launched in San Francisco, a large urban city with an established taxi service and did not target low-end customers or create a new market (from the consumer perspective). In contrast, UberSELECT, an option that provides luxurious cars such as limousines at
2944-402: A lower cost. It is based on the idea that entrepreneurs can make their implicit assumptions about how their venture works explicit and empirically testing it. The empirical test is to de/validate these assumptions and to get an engaged understanding of the business model of the new ventures, and in doing so, the new ventures are created iteratively in a build–measure–learn loop. Hence, lean startup
3072-496: A manual typewriter with an electric typewriter, but not a typewriter with a word processor. Therein lies the management challenge of high technology. Not all modern technologies are high technologies, only those used and functioning as such, and embedded in their requisite TSNs. They have to empower the individual because only through the individual can they empower knowledge. Not all information technologies have integrative effects. Some information systems are still designed to improve
3200-703: A new Accelerator investment model was introduced by Y Combinator that combined fixed terms investment model with fixed period intense bootcamp style training program, to streamline the seed/early-stage investment process with training to be more systematic. Minimum viable product A minimum viable product ( MVP ) is a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development . A focus on releasing an MVP means that developers potentially avoid lengthy and (possibly) unnecessary work. Instead, they iterate on working versions and respond to feedback, challenging and validating assumptions about
3328-406: A new market for sports that was not around before in the sense that players and fans have instant access to information related to sports. Disruptiveness of research articles can be estimated with CD index. High technology is a technology core that changes the very architecture (structure and organization) of the components of the technology support net . High technology therefore transforms
3456-461: A number of ways, including surveys, cold calling, email responses, word of mouth or through sample research. Design thinking is used to understand the customers' need in an engaged manner. Design thinking and customer development can be biased because they do not remove the risk of bias because the same biases manifest in the sources of information, the type of information sought, and the interpretation of that information. Encouraging people to consider
3584-429: A percentage of monthly revenue. Venture capital firms and angel investors may help startup companies begin operations, exchanging seed money for an equity stake in the firm. Venture capitalists and angel investors provide financing to a range of startups (a portfolio), with the expectation that a very small number of the startups will become viable and make money. In practice though, many startups are initially funded by
3712-434: A powerful team: the product person (e.g. an engineer), a marketing person (for market research , customer interaction, vision) and a finance or operation's person (to handle operations or raise funds). The founder that is responsible for the overall strategy of the startup plays the role of founder-CEOs, much like CEOs in established firms. Startup studios provide an opportunity for founders and team members to grow along with
3840-512: A prefabricated, isolated business model. A minimum viable product has just enough core features to effectively deploy the product, and no more. Developers typically deploy the product to a subset of possible customers, such as early adopters who are thought to be more forgiving, more likely to give feedback, and able to grasp a product vision from an early prototype or marketing information. This strategy aims to avoid building products that customers do not want and seeks to maximize information about
3968-536: A proactive role in exploitation of the disruptive innovation process. In the practical world, the popularization of personal computers illustrates how knowledge contributes to the ongoing technology innovation. The original centralized concept (one computer, many persons) is a knowledge-defying idea of the prehistory of computing, and its inadequacies and failures have become clearly apparent. The era of personal computing brought powerful computers "on every desk" (one person, one computer). This short transitional period
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4096-410: A product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches. They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream. Christensen also noted that products considered as disruptive innovations tend to skip stages in
4224-399: A product's requirements. The term was coined and defined in 2001 by Frank Robinson and then popularized by Steve Blank and Eric Ries . It may also involve carrying out market analysis beforehand. The MVP is analogous to experimentation in the scientific method applied in the context of validating business hypotheses. It is utilized so that prospective entrepreneurs would know whether
4352-426: A result, the new technology tends to get ignored in favor of what’s currently popular with the best customers. But then another company steps in to bring the innovation to a new market. Once the disruptive technology becomes established there, smaller-scale innovation rapidly raise the technology’s performance on attributes that mainstream customers’ value. For example, the automobile was high technology with respect to
4480-783: A sample of 101 unsuccessful startups, companies reported that experiencing one or more of five common factors were the reason for failure; the lack of consumer interest in the product or service (42% of failures), funding or cash problems (29%), personnel or staffing problems (23%), competition from rival companies (19%) and problems with pricing of the product or service (18%). In cases of funding problems, it can leave employees without paychecks. Sometimes, these companies are purchased by other companies if they are deemed to be viable, but oftentimes, they leave employees with very little recourse to recoup lost income for worked time. More than one-third of founders believe that running out of money led to failure. Second to that, founders attribute their failure to
4608-471: A startup, there are different types of stages in which the investor can participate. The first round is called seed round . The seed round generally is when the startup is still in the very early phase of execution when their product is still in the prototype phase. There is likely no performance data or positive financials as of yet. Therefore, investors rely on strength of the idea and the team in place. At this level, family friends and angel investors will be
4736-412: A super-mind, super-book, or super-database, but in a complex relational pattern of networks brought forth to coordinate human action. A proactive approach to addressing the challenge posed by disruptive innovations has been debated by scholars. Petzold criticized the lack of acknowledgment of underlying process of the change to study the disruptive innovation over time from a process view and complexify
4864-448: A technological mutation; then new high technology appears and the cycle is repeated. Regarding this evolving process of technology, Christensen said: The technological changes that damage established companies are usually not radically new or difficult from a technological point of view. They do, however, have two important characteristics: First, they typically present a different package of performance attributes—ones that, at least at
4992-597: A whole had to be "constructive" in improving the current method of manufacturing, yet disruptively impact the whole of the business case model, resulting in a significant reduction of waste, energy, materials, labor, or legacy costs to the user. In keeping with the insight that a persuasive advertising campaign can be just as effective as technological sophistication at bringing a successful product to market, Christensen's theory explains why many disruptive innovations are not advanced or useful technologies, rather combinations of existing off-the-shelf components, applied shrewdly to
5120-555: Is innovation that creates a new market and value network or enters at the bottom of an existing market and eventually displaces established market-leading firms, products, and alliances. The term, "disruptive innovation" was popularized by the American academic Clayton Christensen and his collaborators beginning in 1995, but the concept had been previously described in Richard N. Foster 's book "Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage" and in
5248-431: Is a common challenge for new companies and startups. The concept of minimum viable co-founder is based on looking for a co-founder with the following attributes: Some research has shown that early release of an MVP may hurt a company more than help when companies risk imitation by a competitor and have not established other barriers to imitation. It has also indicated that negative feedback on an MVP can negatively affect
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5376-474: Is a positioned and retrospective act. Technology, being a form of social relationship, always evolves. No technology remains fixed. Technology starts, develops, persists, mutates, stagnates, and declines, just like living organisms . The evolutionary life cycle occurs in the use and development of any technology. A new high-technology core emerges and challenges existing technology support nets (TSNs), which are thus forced to coevolve with it. New versions of
5504-471: Is a set of principles for entrepreneurial learning and business model design. More precisely, it is a set of design principles aimed for iteratively experiential learning under uncertainty in an engaged empirical manner. Typically, a lean startup focuses on a few lean principles: A key principle of startup is to validate the market need before providing a customer-centric product or service to avoid business ideas with weak demand. Market validation can be done in
5632-419: Is a strategy that may be used as a part of Blank's customer development methodology that focuses on continual product iteration and refinement based on customer feedback. Additionally, the presentation of non-existing products and features may be refined using web-based statistical hypothesis testing , such as A/B testing . The Business Model Canvas is used to map in the major components and activities for
5760-724: Is considered to be a "strong" startup ecosystem. One of the most famous startup ecosystems is Silicon Valley in California, where major computer and internet firms and top universities such as Stanford University create a stimulating startup environment. Boston (where Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located) and Berlin , home of WISTA (a top research area), also have numerous creative industries , leading entrepreneurs and startup firms. Basically, attempts are being made worldwide, for example in Israel with its Silicon Wadi , in France with
5888-472: Is effective in increasing the entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived behavioral control, helping people and their businesses grow. Most of startup training falls into the mode of experiential learning, in which students are exposed to a large extent to a real-life entrepreneurship context as new venture teams. An example of group-based experiential startup training is the Lean LaunchPad initiative that applies
6016-413: Is especially important as the main cause of startup failure is the lack of market need; that is, many startups fail because their product isn't needed by many people, and so they cannot generate enough revenue to recoup the initial investment. Thus it can be said that utilizing an MVP would illuminate a prospective entrepreneur on the market demand for their products. For example, in 2015, specialists from
6144-415: Is important for technology-oriented startup companies to develop a sound strategy for protecting their intellectual capital as early as possible. Startup companies, particularly those associated with new technology, sometimes produce huge returns to their creators and investors—a recent example of such is Google, whose creators became billionaires through their stock ownership and options. When investing in
6272-428: Is sufficient learning on market validation. Paul Graham said: "What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is." Founders or co-founders are people involved in the initial launch of startup companies. Three people are mainly required as co-founders to create
6400-434: Is tested, and only if it proves successful will further development be invested. "The minimum viable product is that version of a new product a team uses to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort." The definition's use of the words maximum and minimum means it is not formulaic. It requires judgment to figure out, for any given context, what MVP makes sense. Due to this vagueness,
6528-465: Is the only reward. In the technology mudslide hypothesis, Christensen differentiated disruptive innovation from sustaining innovation . He explained that the latter's goal is to improve existing product performance. On the other hand, he defines a disruptive innovation as a product or service designed for a new set of customers. Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in
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#17328692857666656-746: The Great Depression , which was blamed in part on a rise in speculative investments in unregulated small companies, startup investing was primarily a word of mouth activity reserved for the friends and family of a startup's co-founders, business angels, and Venture Capital funds. In the United States, this has been the case ever since the implementation of the Securities Act of 1933 . Many nations implemented similar legislation to prohibit general solicitation and general advertising of unregistered securities, including shares offered by startup companies. In 2005,
6784-682: The Inovallée or in Italy in Trieste with the AREA Science Park , to network basic research, universities and technology parks in order to create a startup-friendly ecosystem. Although there are startups created in all types of businesses, and all over the world, some locations and business sectors are particularly associated with startup companies. The internet bubble of the late 1990s was associated with huge numbers of internet startup companies, some selling
6912-502: The University of Sydney devised the Rippa robot to automate farm and weed management. Before it was released, the technical hypothesis – that the robot can distinguish weeds from farm plants – had already been proven. But the business hypothesis – that it would be a viable tool on a working farm – still needed to be proved. The application of the MVP method here is that the business hypothesis
7040-494: The self-efficacy of nascent entrepreneurs. Mentoring offers direction for entrepreneurs to enhance their knowledge of how to sustain their assets relating to their status and identity and strengthen their real-time skills. There are many principles in creating a startup. Some of the principles needed are listed below: Lean startup is a clear set of principles to create and design startups under limited resources and tremendous uncertainty to build their ventures more flexibly and at
7168-462: The 2010s wore hoodies , sneakers and other casual clothes to business meetings. Their offices may have recreational facilities in them, such as pool tables, ping pong tables, football tables and pinball machines , which are used to create a fun work environment, stimulate team development and team spirit, and encourage creativity. Some of the casual approaches, such as the use of "flat" organizational structures, in which regular employees can talk with
7296-507: The Internet. Startups can receive funding via more involved stakeholders, such as startup studios. Startup studios provide funding to support the business through a successful launch, but they also provide extensive operational support, such as HR, finance and accounting, marketing, and product development, to increase the probability of success and propel growth. Startup are funded through preset rounds, depending on their funding requirement and
7424-422: The authors of Blue Ocean Strategy , also published a book in 2023, Beyond Disruption , criticizing disruptive innovation for the social costs it tends to incur. In 2009, Milan Zeleny described high technology as disruptive technology and raised the question of what is being disrupted. The answer, according to Zeleny, is the support network of high technology. For example, introducing electric cars disrupts
7552-463: The business or enterprise of an issuer; However, not every promoter is a co-founder. In fact, there is no formal, legal definition of what makes somebody a co-founder. The right to call oneself a co-founder can be established through an agreement with one's fellow co-founders or with permission of the board of directors, investors, or shareholders of a startup company. When there is no definitive agreement (like shareholders' agreement ), disputes about who
7680-536: The business they help to build. In order to create forward momentum, founders must ensure that they provide opportunities for their team members to grow and evolve within the company. The language of securities regulation in the United States considers co-founders to be promoters under Regulation D . The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission definition of promoter includes: (i) Any person who, acting alone or in conjunction with one or more other persons, directly or indirectly takes initiative in founding and organizing
7808-420: The casual dress and playful office environment fool you. New enterprises operate under do-or-die conditions. If you do not roll out a useable product or service in a timely fashion, the company will fail. Bye-bye paycheck, hello eviction. Iman Jalali, chief of staff at ContextMedia Entrepreneurs often feel stressed. They have internal and external pressures. Internally, they need to meet deadlines to develop
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#17328692857667936-520: The co-founders are, can arise. Self-efficacy refers to the confidence an individual has to create a new business or startup. It has a strong relation with startup actions. Entrepreneurs' sense of self-efficacy can play a major role in how they approach goals, tasks, and challenges. Entrepreneurs with high self-efficacy—that is, those who believe they can perform well—are more likely to view difficult tasks as something to be mastered rather than something to be avoided. Startups are pressure cookers. Don't let
8064-499: The company's namesake and founder, Nobel laureate and co-inventor of the transistor William Shockley ... (His employees) formed Fairchild Semiconductor immediately following their departure... After several years, Fairchild gained its footing, becoming a formidable presence in this sector. Its founders began leaving to start companies based on their own latest ideas and were followed on this path by their own former leading employees... The process gained momentum and what had once begun in
8192-483: The concept to support the understanding of its unfolding and advance its manageability. Keeping in view the multidimensional nature of disruptive innovation a measurement framework has been developed by Guo to enable a systemic assessment of disruptive potential of innovations, providing insights for the decisions in product/service launch and resource allocation. Middle managers play an important role in long term sustainability of any firm and thus have been studied to have
8320-626: The conventional approach and the risk associated with it is higher than the other more incremental, architectural or evolutionary forms of innovations, but once it is deployed in the market, it achieves a much faster penetration and higher degree of impact on the established markets. Beyond business and economics disruptive innovations can also be considered to disrupt complex systems , including economic and business-related aspects. Through identifying and analyzing systems for possible points of intervention, one can then design changes focused on disruptive interventions. The term disruptive technologies
8448-499: The core are designed and fitted into an increasingly appropriate TSN, with smaller and smaller high-technology effects. High technology becomes regular technology, with more efficient versions fitting the same support net. Finally, even the efficiency gains diminish, emphasis shifts to product tertiary attributes (appearance, style), and technology becomes TSN-preserving appropriate technology. This technological equilibrium state becomes established and fixated, resisting being interrupted by
8576-400: The courses and encourage them to make them into real startups should they wish to do so. Such mock-up startups, however, may not be enough to accurately simulate real-world startup practice if the challenges typically faced by startups (e.g. lack of funding to keep operating) are not present in the course setting. To date, much of the entrepreneurship training is yet to be personalized to match
8704-469: The customer with the least money spent. The technique falls under the Lean Startup methodology as MVPs aim to test business hypotheses and validated learning is one of the five principles of the Lean Startup method. It contrasts strongly with the traditional "stealth mode" method of product development where businesses make detailed business plans spanning a considerable time horizon. Steve Blank posited that
8832-426: The direct comparability by changing the system itself, therefore requiring new measures and new assessments of its productivity. High technology cannot be compared and evaluated with the existing technology purely on the basis of cost, net present value or return on investment. Only within an unchanging and relatively stable TSN would such direct financial comparability be meaningful. For example, you can directly compare
8960-424: The disruptor needs to enter the segment where the customer is willing to pay a little more for higher quality. To ensure this quality in its product, the disruptor needs to innovate. The incumbent will not do much to retain its share in a not-so-profitable segment, and will move up-market and focus on its more attractive customers. After a number of such encounters, the incumbent is squeezed into smaller markets than it
9088-465: The economic benefits of these same well-managed companies, once decision-making management understood the systemic benefits as a whole. Christensen distinguishes between "low-end disruption", which targets customers who do not need the full performance valued by customers at the high end of the market, and "new-market disruption", which targets customers who have needs that were previously unserved by existing incumbents. "Low-end disruption" occurs when
9216-586: The effort (such as complacency born of profitability) causes a rapid downhill slide. Christensen and colleagues have shown that this simplistic hypothesis is wrong; it doesn't model reality. What they have shown is that good firms are usually aware of the innovations, but their business environment does not allow them to pursue them when they first arise, because they are not profitable enough at first and because their development can take scarce resources away from that of sustaining innovations (which are needed to compete against current competition). In Christensen's terms,
9344-589: The founders and chief executive officers informally, are done to promote efficiency in the workplace, which is needed to get their business off the ground. In a 1960 study, Douglas McGregor stressed that punishments and rewards for uniformity in the workplace are not necessary because some people are born with the motivation to work without incentives. Some startups do not use a strict command and control hierarchical structure, with executives, managers, supervisors and employees. Some startups offer employees incentives such as stock options , to increase their "buy in" from
9472-489: The founders may close or exit the startups. Sustaining effort is required as the startup process can take a long period of time, by one estimate, three years or longer. Sustaining effort over the long term is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Some startup founders have a more casual or offbeat attitude in their dress, office space and marketing , as compared to executives in established corporations. For example, startup founders in
9600-451: The founders themselves using "bootstrapping", in which loans or monetary gifts from friends and family are combined with savings and credit card debt to finance the venture. Factoring is another option, though it is not unique to startups. Other funding opportunities include various forms of crowdfunding , for example equity crowdfunding, in which the startup seeks funding from a large number of individuals, typically by pitching their idea on
9728-659: The general public as investment opportunities until and unless they first obtained approval from regulators for an initial public offering (IPO) that typically involved a listing of the startup's securities on a stock exchange . Today, there are many alternative forms of IPO commonly employed by startups and startup promoters that do not include an exchange listing, so they may avoid certain regulatory compliance obligations, including mandatory periodic disclosures of financial information and factual discussion of business conditions by management that investors and potential investors routinely receive from registered public companies. Over
9856-449: The horse carriage. It evolved into technology and finally into appropriate technology with a stable, unchanging TSN. The main high-technology advance in the offing is some form of electric car —whether the energy source is the sun, hydrogen, water, air pressure, or traditional charging outlet. Electric cars preceded the gasoline automobile by many decades and are now returning to replace the traditional gasoline automobile. The printing press
9984-487: The idea borne from the mind of the innovator to a marketable product, is central to understanding how novel technology facilitates the rapid destruction of established technologies and markets by the disruptor. Christensen and Mark W. Johnson, who cofounded the management consulting firm Innosight , described the dynamics of "business model innovation" in the 2008 Harvard Business Review article "Reinventing Your Business Model". The concept of disruptive technology continues
10112-574: The idea that "the next big thing always starts out being dismissed as a 'toy'." The current theoretical understanding of disruptive innovation is different from what might be expected by default, an idea that Clayton M. Christensen called the "technology mudslide hypothesis". This is the simplistic idea that an established firm fails because it doesn't "keep up technologically" with other firms. In this hypothesis, firms are like climbers scrambling upward on crumbling footing, where it takes constant upward-climbing effort just to stay still, and any break from
10240-491: The illusion of control ). Below are some of the most critical decision biases of entrepreneurs to start up a new business. Startups use several action principles to generate evidence as quickly as possible to reduce the downside effect of decision biases such as an escalation of commitment, overconfidence, and the illusion of control. Many entrepreneurs seek feedback from mentors in creating their startups. Mentors guide founders and impart entrepreneurial skills and may increase
10368-409: The integral, or 'sum over histories', of the product's market behavior." In the late 1990s, the automotive sector began to embrace a perspective of "constructive disruptive technology" by working with the consultant David E. O'Ryan, whereby the use of current off-the-shelf technology was integrated with newer innovation to create what he called "an unfair advantage". The process or technology change as
10496-517: The last decade, Europe has developed a rapid start-up scene that has given birth to global players, including more than 70 unicorns, and has created more than two million jobs. Investment in European start-ups increased sixfold between 2010 and 2020, reaching approximately €40 billion. Europe does a poorer job of nurturing young companies because of a failure to support their development into industry leaders. Promising European start-ups then struggle to raise
10624-462: The like. For the first time, technology empowers individuals rather than external hierarchies. It transfers influence and power where it optimally belongs: at the loci of the useful knowledge. Even though hierarchies and bureaucracies do not innovate, free and empowered individuals do; knowledge, innovation, spontaneity, and self-reliance are becoming increasingly valued and promoted. Uber is not an example of disruption because it did not originate in
10752-558: The long run. Venture capital is the money of invention that is invested into young businesses which hold no historic background. Usually, the business of venture capital is highly risky but one can at the same time expect high returns as well. In the United States, the solicitation of funds became easier for startups as result of the JOBS Act . Prior to the advent of equity crowdfunding , a form of online investing that has been legalized in several nations, startups did not advertise themselves to
10880-456: The long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy. Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science . Design science uses design principles considered to be
11008-486: The main principle of the Lean Startup approach rests in the validation of the hypotheses underlying the product by asking customers if they want the product or if the product meets their needs, and pivoting to another approach if the hypothesis turns out to be false. This approach to validating business ideas cheaply before substantial investment saves costs and limits risk as businesses that upon experimentation turn out to be commercially unfeasible can easily be terminated. It
11136-912: The market for horse-drawn vehicles . The market for transportation essentially remained intact until the debut of the lower-priced Ford Model T in 1908. The mass-produced automobile was a disruptive innovation, because it changed the transportation market, whereas the first thirty years of automobiles did not. Disruptive innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs in startups , rather than existing market-leading companies. The business environment of market leaders does not allow them to pursue disruptive innovations when they first arise, because they are not profitable enough at first and because their development can take scarce resources away from sustaining innovations (which are needed to compete against current competition). Small teams are more likely to create disruptive innovations than large teams. A disruptive process can take longer to develop than by
11264-434: The market situation. In their 2013 study, Kask and Linton develop two ideal profiles, or also known as configurations or archetypes, for startups that are commercializing inventions. The inheritor profile calls for a management style that is not too entrepreneurial (more conservative) and the startup should have an incremental invention (building on a previous standard). This profile is set out to be more successful (in finding
11392-686: The market. Since the business's new product ideas can be inferred from their testing, the method may be unsuited to environments where the protection of the intellectual property is limited (and where products are easily imitated). The criticism of the MVP approach has led to several new approaches, e.g. the Minimum Viable Experiment MVE, the Minimum Awesome Product MAP, or the Simple, Lovable, Complete. Disruptive innovation In business theory, disruptive innovation
11520-573: The methodology of relying on selected case studies as the principal form of evidence. Jill Lepore points out that some companies identified by the theory as victims of disruption a decade or more ago, rather than being defunct, remain dominant in their industries today (including Seagate Technology , U.S. Steel , and Bucyrus ). Lepore questions whether the theory has been oversold and misapplied, as if it were able to explain everything in every sphere of life, including not just business but education and public institutions. W.Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne,
11648-505: The necessary capital to expand and mature. They are forced to either relocate to the US's deep capital markets or sell themselves to larger rivals with more financial availability. As a result, start-ups in the United States can typically raise far more money—up to five times as much as in Europe. Investors are generally most attracted to those new companies distinguished by their strong co-founding team,
11776-839: The ones participating. At this stage the level of risk and payoff are at their greatest. The next round is called Series A . At this point the company already has traction and may be making revenue. In Series A rounds venture capital firms will be participating alongside angels or super angel investors. The next rounds are Series B , C, and D. These three rounds are the ones leading towards the Initial Public Offering ( IPO ). Venture capital firms and private equity firms will be participating. Series B: Companies are generating consistent revenue but must scale to meet growing demand. Series C & D: Companies with strong financial performance looking to expand to new markets, develop new products, make an acquisition, and/or preparing for IPO. After
11904-403: The open-source software methodology of release early, release often that listens to users, letting them define the features and future of the product. Instead, the MVP starts with a product vision, which is maintained throughout the product life cycle, although it is adapted based on the explicit and implicit (indirect measures) feedback from potential future customers of the product. The MVP
12032-1019: The opposite of whatever decision they are about to make tends to reduce biases such as overconfidence, the hindsight bias , and anchoring. In startups, many decisions are made under uncertainty, and hence a key principle for startups is to be agile and flexible. Founders can embed options to design startups in flexible manners, so that the startups can change easily in future. Uncertainty can vary within-person (I feel more uncertain this year than last year) and between-person (he feels more uncertain than she does). A study found that when entrepreneurs feel more uncertain, they identify more opportunities (within-person difference), but entrepreneurs who perceive more uncertainties than others do not identify more opportunities than others do (no between-person difference). Startups may form partnerships with other firms to enable their business model to operate. To become attractive to other businesses, startups need to align their internal features, such as management style and products with
12160-400: The outset, are not valued by existing customers. Second, the performance attributes that existing customers do value improve at such a rapid rate that the new technology can later invade those established markets. The World Bank 's 2019 World Development Report on The Changing Nature of Work examines how technology shapes the relative demand for certain skills in labor markets and expands
12288-451: The paper Strategic Responses to Technological Threats, as well as by Joseph Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (as creative destruction). Not all innovations are disruptive, even if they are revolutionary. For example, the first automobiles in the late 19th century were not a disruptive innovation, because early automobiles were expensive luxury items that did not disrupt
12416-761: The participants and the training. The size and maturity of the startup ecosystem is where a startup is launched and where it grows to have an effect on the volume and success of the startups. The startup ecosystem consists of the individuals (entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors , mentors, advisors); institutions and organizations (top research universities and institutes, business schools and entrepreneurship programs and centres operated by universities and colleges, non-profit entrepreneurship support organizations, government entrepreneurship programs and services, Chambers of commerce ) business incubators and business accelerators and top-performing entrepreneurial firms and startups. A region with all of these elements
12544-588: The principles of customer development and Lean Startup to technology-based startup projects. As startups are typically thought to operate under a notable lack of resources, have little or no operating history, and to consist of individuals with little practical experience, it is possible to simulate startups in a classroom setting with reasonable accuracy. In fact, it is not uncommon for students to actually participate in real startups during and after their studies. Similarly, university courses teaching software startup themes often have students found mock-up startups during
12672-401: The process. Hasche and Linton argue that startups can learn from their relationships with other firms, and even if the relationship ends, the startup will have gained valuable knowledge about how it should move on going forward. When a relationship is failing for a startup it needs to make changes. Three types of changes can be identified according to Hasche and Linton: Startups need to learn at
12800-403: The prototypes and get the product or service ready for market. Externally they are expected to meet milestones of investors and other stakeholders to ensure continued resources from them on the startups. Coping with stress is critical to entrepreneurs because of the stressful nature of starting up a new firm under uncertainty. Coping with stress unsuccessfully could lead to emotional exhaustion, and
12928-455: The qualitative nature of the TSN's tasks and their relations, as well as their requisite physical, energy, and information flows. It also affects the skills required, the roles played, and the styles of management and coordination—the organizational culture itself. This kind of technology core is different from regular technology core, which preserves the qualitative nature of flows and the structure of
13056-407: The rate at which products improve exceeds the rate at which customers can adopt the new performance. Therefore, at some point the performance of the product overshoots the needs of certain customer segments. At this point, a disruptive technology may enter the market and provide a product that has lower performance than the incumbent but that exceeds the requirements of certain segments, thereby gaining
13184-640: The reach of firms - robotics and digital technologies, for example, enable firms to automate, replacing labor with machines to become more efficient, and innovate, expanding the number of tasks and products. Joseph Bower explained the process of how disruptive technology, through its requisite support net, dramatically transforms a certain industry. When the technology that has the potential for revolutionizing an industry emerges, established companies typically see it as unattractive: it’s not something their mainstream customers want, and its projected profit margins aren’t sufficient to cover big-company cost structure. As
13312-411: The release is facilitated by rapid application development tools and languages common to web application development. The MVP differs from the conventional market testing strategy of investing time and money early to implement a product before testing it in the market. It is intended to ensure that the market wants the product before large time and monetary investments are made. The MVP differs from
13440-413: The requisite TSN. The electric car will be resisted by gas-station operators in the same way automated teller machines (ATMs) were resisted by bank tellers and automobiles by horsewhip makers. Technology does not qualitatively restructure the TSN and therefore will not be resisted and never has been resisted. Middle management resists business process reengineering because BPR represents a direct assault on
13568-558: The same sector with more or less the same activities, have an increased chance of becoming a better entrepreneur. However, some studies indicate that restarters are more heavily discouraged in Europe than in the US. Many institutions and universities provide training on startups. In the context of universities, some of the courses are entrepreneurship courses that also deal with the topic of startups, while other courses are specifically dedicated to startups. Startup courses are found both in traditional economic or business disciplines as well as
13696-489: The sense that the startup has the potential to grow rapidly with a limited investment of capital, labor or land. Timing has often been the single most important factor for biggest startup successes, while at the same time it's identified to be one of the hardest things to master by many serial entrepreneurs and investors. Startups have several options for funding. Revenue-based financing lenders can help startup companies by providing non-dilutive growth capital in exchange for
13824-426: The side of information technology disciplines. As startups are often focused on software, they are also occasionally taught while focusing on software development alongside the business aspects of a startup. Founders go through a lot to set up a startup. A startup requires patience and resilience, and training programs need to have both the business components and the psychological components. Entrepreneurship education
13952-400: The stage of growth of the company. Startup investing is generally divided into six stage, namely While some (would-be) entrepreneurs believe that they can't start a company without funding from VC, Angel, etc. that is not the case. In fact, many entrepreneurs have founded successful businesses for almost no capital, including the founders of MailChimp , Shopify , and ShutterStock . If
14080-515: The start up (as these employees stand to gain if the company does well). This removal of stressors allows the workers and researchers in the startup to focus less on the work environment around them, and more on achieving the task at hand, giving them the potential to achieve something great for both themselves and their company. The failure rate of startup companies is very high. A 2014 article in Fortune estimated that 90% of startups ultimately fail. In
14208-542: The support and only allows users to perform the same tasks in the same way, but faster, more reliably, in larger quantities, or more efficiently. It is also different from appropriate technology core, which preserves the TSN itself with the purpose of technology implementation and allows users to do the same thing in the same way at comparable levels of efficiency, instead of improving the efficiency of performance. On differences between high and low technologies, Milan Zeleny wrote: The effects of high technology always breaks
14336-443: The support net (coordinative hierarchy) they thrive on. Teamwork and multi-functionality is resisted by those whose TSN provides the comfort of narrow specialization and command-driven work. Social media could be considered a disruptive innovation within sports. More specifically, the way that news in sports circulates nowadays versus the pre-internet era where sports news was mainly on TV, radio and newspapers. Social media has created
14464-421: The support network for gasoline cars (network of gas and service stations). Such disruption is fully expected and therefore effectively resisted by support net owners. In the long run, high (disruptive) technology bypasses, upgrades, or replaces the outdated support network. Questioning the concept of a disruptive technology, Haxell (2012) questions how such technologies get named and framed, pointing out that this
14592-464: The technology covered by the patents. Startup investing is the action of making an investment in an early-stage company. Beyond founders' own contributions, some startups raise additional investment at some or several stages of their growth. Not all startups trying to raise investments are successful in their fundraising.Venture Capital is a subdivision of Private Equity wherein external investors fund small-scale startups that have high growth potential in
14720-522: The technology to provide internet access, others using the internet to provide services. Most of this startup activity was located in the most well-known startup ecosystem - Silicon Valley , an area of northern California renowned for the high level of startup company activity: The spark that set off the explosive boom of "Silicon startups" in Stanford Industrial Park was a personal dispute in 1957 between employees of Shockley Semiconductor and
14848-409: The term disruptive technology with disruptive innovation because he recognized that most technologies are not intrinsically disruptive or sustaining in character; rather, it is the business model that identifies the crucial idea that potentiates profound market success and subsequently serves as the disruptive vector. Comprehending Christensen's business model, which takes the disruptive vector from
14976-451: The term MVP is commonly used, either deliberately or unwittingly, to refer to a much broader notion ranging from a rather prototype-like product to a fully-fledged and marketable product. An MVP can be part of a strategy and process directed toward making and selling a product to customers. It is a core artifact in an iterative process of idea generation, prototyping, presentation, data collection, analysis and learning. One seeks to minimize
15104-542: The term further in his book The Innovator's Dilemma . Innovator's Dilemma explored the case of the disk drive industry (the disk drive and memory industry, with its rapid technological evolution, is to the study of technology what fruit flies are to the study of genetics, as Christensen was told in the 1990s ) and the excavating and Earth-moving industry (where hydraulic actuation slowly, yet eventually, displaced cable-actuated machinery). In his sequel with Michael E. Raynor, The Innovator's Solution , Christensen replaced
15232-426: The total time spent on an iteration. The process is iterated until a desirable product/market fit is obtained, or until the product is deemed non-viable. Steve Blank typically refers to minimum viable product as minimum feature set. Releasing and assessing the impact of a minimum viable product is a market testing strategy that is used to screen product ideas soon after their generation. In software development,
15360-585: The traditional hierarchy of command and thus preserve and entrench the existing TSN. The administrative model of management, for instance, further aggravates the division of task and labor, further specializes knowledge, separates management from workers, and concentrates information and knowledge in centers. As knowledge surpasses capital, labor, and raw materials as the dominant economic resource, technologies are also starting to reflect this shift. Technologies are rapidly shifting from centralized hierarchies to distributed networks. Nowadays knowledge does not reside in
15488-451: The traditional product design and development process to quickly gain market traction and competitive advantage . He argued that disruptive innovations can hurt successful, well-managed companies that are responsive to their customers and have excellent research and development. These companies tend to ignore the markets most susceptible to disruptive innovations, because the markets have very tight profit margins and are too small to provide
15616-401: The way it tend to improve products or services differently in comparison to normal market drivers. It initially caters to a niche market and proceeds on defining the industry over time once it is able to penetrate the market or induce consumers to defect from the existing market into the new market it created. The extrapolation of the theory to all aspects of life has been challenged, as has
15744-404: Was a development that changed the way that information was stored, transmitted, and replicated. This allowed empowered authors but it also promoted censorship and information overload in writing technology. Milan Zeleny described the above phenomenon. He also wrote that: Implementing high technology is often resisted. This resistance is well understood on the part of active participants in
15872-484: Was an "innovation" only in the sense that it was new. However, as this market grew and the drives improved, the companies that manufactured them eventually triumphed while many of the existing manufacturers of 8 inch drives fell behind. CRT sets were very heavy, and the size and weight of the tube limited the maximum screen size to about 38 inches; in contrast, LCD and other flat-panel TVs are available in 40", 50", 60" and even bigger sizes, all of which weigh much less than
16000-450: Was coined by Clayton M. Christensen and introduced in his 1995 article Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave , which he cowrote with Joseph Bower. The article is aimed at both management executives who make the funding or purchasing decisions in companies, as well as the research community, which is largely responsible for introducing the disruptive vector to the consumer market. He describes
16128-399: Was discontinued in 2009. Misplaced Pages's free access, online accessibility on computers and smartphones , unlimited size and instant updates are some of the challenges faced by for-profit competition in the encyclopedia market. The 8 inch drives were not affordable for new desktop machines. The simple 5.25 inch drive, assembled from technologically inferior "off-the-shelf" components,
16256-486: Was necessary for getting used to the new computing environment, but was inadequate from the vantage point of producing knowledge. Adequate knowledge creation and management come mainly from networking and distributed computing (one person, many computers). Each person's computer must form an access point to the entire computing landscape or ecology through the Internet of other computers, databases, and mainframes, as well as production, distribution, and retailing facilities, and
16384-439: Was previously serving. And then, finally, the disruptive technology meets the demands of the most profitable segment and drives the established company out of the market. "New market disruption" occurs when a product fits a new or emerging market segment that is not being served by existing incumbents in the industry. Some scholars note that the creation of a new market is a defining feature of disruptive innovation, particularly in
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