2021/03/14 by Anh Nguyen‐Duc, Kai‐Kristian Kemell, Nguyen-Duc, Anh +3
Business, Management and Accounting · Computer Science · #Private Equity and Venture Capital #Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences #Open Source Software Innovations
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2103.07999
Context: Software startups are an essential source of innovation and\nsoftware-intensive products. The need to understand product development in\nstartups and to provide relevant support are highlighted in software research.\nWhile state-of-the-art literature reveals how startups develop their software,\nthe reasons why they adopt these activities are underexplored. Objective: This\nstudy investigates the tactics behind software engineering (SE) activities by\nanalyzing key engineering events during startup journeys. We explore how\nentrepreneurial mindsets may be associated with SE knowledge areas and with\neach startup case. Method: Our theoretical foundation is based on causation and\neffectuation models. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 software\nstartups. We used two-round open coding and thematic analysis to describe and\nidentify entrepreneurial software development patterns. Additionally, we\ncalculated an effectuation index for each startup case. Results: We identified\n621 events merged into 32 codes of entrepreneurial logic in SE from the sample.\nWe found a systemic occurrence of the logic in all areas of SE activities.\nMinimum Viable Product (MVP), Technical Debt (TD), and Customer Involvement\n(CI) tend to be associated with effectual logic, while testing activities at\ndifferent levels are associated with causal logic. The effectuation index\nrevealed that startups are either effectuation-driven or mixed-logics-driven.\nConclusions: Software startups fall into two types that differentiate between\nhow traditional SE approaches may apply to them. Effectuation seems the most\nrelevant and essential model for explaining and developing suitable SE\npractices for software startups.\n