From ideas to business: how to sustain a start-up company · From ideas to business: how to sustain...
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Transcript of From ideas to business: how to sustain a start-up company · From ideas to business: how to sustain...
Opportunity recognition
Liability of neweness (Stinchombe, 1965)
1) new organizations operate
inefficiently as long as
people do not learn their
roles, and
2) organizational routines have
not been developed;
3) “new organizations must rely
heavily on social ties among
strangers” (p. 149), and the
consequent lack of
confidence translates into an
additional source of
organizational inefficiencies;
4) the construction of a stable
portfolio of customers takes
some time, during which
customer-producer ties are
still very fragile.
Start-up: Failure or success?
Ecologies
«pull models»
• Industrial districts
• Clusters
• Corporate spin-off
• Academic spin-off
Industrial policies
«push models»
• Business innovation centres (BIC)
• Science parks (PST)
• Business accelerators
• Traditional business incubators
New ecologies
«hybrid models»
• Networked incubators
• Virtual incubators
• IDs
• Clusters
• Spin-off
Ecologies
Pull models
• Science parks
• Traditional incubators
Policies
Push models
• Networked incubators
• Crowdfunding
• Crowdsourcing
New ecologies
Hibrid models
Rimedi?
«Natural incubators» Towards the governance
of ecologies
Business incubators
as proto-IDs/cluster?
Geographical proximity Cognitive proximity
How to sustain entrepreneurship?
The business incubator
• Start-up companies located in a business incubator have – a higher survival rate (Ferguson and Olofsson, 2004; Sherman, 1999)
– Higher sales growth (Löfsten and Lindelöf, 2001, 2002; Colombo and Delmastro, 2002)
– Better innovation performance (Tamásy, 2007)
• if compared to similar start-up companies not located in a business incubator.
Incubators: yesterday, today…& tomorrow
• Business innovation centres (BIC)
• Science parks (PST)
• Business accelerators
• Traditional business incubators
• Networked business incubators
• Virtual business incubators
No-profit incubator For-profit incubator
From to
time
needs
Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Service category Services Sources of
competitive
advantage
Competitors
Physical infrastructure Office space,
desk, PC,
telephone
amenities
Favourable
rent/lease terms,
volume discount,
shared use
Municipalities,
science parks,
real-
estate/landlords
Office support PC & equipment
support,
secretary & mail,
security
IT support &
lease, reception
services, safety &
protection
Science parks,
real estate
operators
Access to
capital
Internal Direct
investment
Own incubation
fund, milestone
instalments,
road-shows
Venture
capitalists,
business angels,
crowdfunding
platforms
External Access to VCs,
business angels
and investors
Process
support
Internal Coaching,
mentoring,
consulting &
legal advice
Access to
technical experts,
start-up training,
business
planning, strong
involvement/co
mmitment of the
management
team in the
entrepreneurial
initiatives
Law &
accountancy
firms,
consultants,
business angels
External
Networking Internal Formal and
informal
relationships
with key
employees
“Rolodex”,
internal
matchmaking,
travel support
HR firms,
networking
organizations,
virtual social
network (i.e.
Facebook and
Linkedin), VCs
and business
angels, clusters
and industrial
districts
External Formal and
informal
relationships
with customers,
suppliers,
partners
Source: Adapted from von Zedtwitz and Grimaldi (2006).
The networked BI
Physical infrastructure & Office support
Access to capital and Process support
Networking
inter-organizational formal linkages
interpersonal cooperative interactions
Networks in a networked BI
Source: Grandinetti and Sedita 2014
…The web, the future?
• Media – Wired Italian Valley.
– CheFuturo! by Riccardo Luna.
– Wikli. by Marco Magnocavallo.
– Innov’azione. Rivista trimestrale edita da Emil Abirascid.
• On line communities/off line events – Italian startup scene. + 18000 members on FB. Community of
Italian startupper founded by Stefano Bernardi. – Indigeni digitali. + 14000 members on FB. Community founded
by Fabio Lalli. Organizza anche eventi per gli amanti della cultura digitale e dell’innovazione in Italia.
– Startup business, founded by Emil Abirascid. Startupbusiness is a hub for the Italian tech ecosystem with a focus on the European and Mediterranean innovation scenes. It consists of a business-networking platform, a platform of services, an editorial area that includes Startupbusiness News, and the Startupbusiness Review newsletter.
– Girl Geek Dinners, founded by Sarah Lamb, organizes events and training initiatives for technology lover girls
…The web, the future?
E-crowds
• Crowdfunding…and beyond
– Kickstarter. Born in 2009, is the largest platform
– Starteed. Founded by Carlo Bedino in 2011. Crowdfunding , crowdsourcing and co-creation platform. Once the idea finds support, the platform offers a social e-commerce service.
H-Farm is a Venture Incubator which operates
on the Web, Digital and New Media, promoting
the development of startups based on
innovative business models.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UYFoc2PH8o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLvnAdI2Wdc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCQeJRR79MQ
How does it work?
Riccardo Donadon (CEO)
H-Farm Portfolio
Methodology • We gathered primary data from multiple respondent groups (incubator
managers, tenant managers and employees, experts) and secondary data from various sources, including websites (of incubator, tenants, business partners, clients and suppliers), social networks (Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter), internal incubator documents, and incubator and tenants’ brochures.
• Primary data collection was conducted in the period May–September 2012 through face-to-face in-depth interviews (one hour long on average) with key actors operating in H-Farm. In addition, a survey was conducted over a sample of 11 companies incubated in H-Farm.
– Firm questionnaire: addressed to founders, collecting information on the inter-organizational network (face-to-face interviews).
– Individual questionnaire: addressed to all members of the firm, collecting information on the interpersonal network (paper self-administered form).
– 11 firm questionnaires and 45 individual questionnaires were collected
• Data were elaborated through descriptive statistics and social network analysis
Interpersonal relationships
Interpersonal relationships
Type of cooperative interaction Communication means Frequency
a.v. % a.v. % a.v. %
Between co-workers 187 63.61 F2F 214 72.79 More times a
week
233 79.25
With H-Farm staff 48 16.33 Skype 42 14.29 More times a
month
49 16.67
With external
consultants
32 10.88 E-mail 18 6.12 More times a
year
9 3.06
Among H-Farmers 27 9.18 Phone 13 4.42 Seldom 3 1.02
Social
network
7 2.38
Total 294 100.00 Total 294 100.00 Total 294 100.00
Source: Grandinetti and Sedita 2014
Inter-organizational relationships
Inter-organizational relationships
Type of contact #Ties External Internal
a.v. % a.v. % a.v. %
Service provider 21 28.00 13 61.90 8 38.10
Client 15 20.00 15 100.00 0 0.00
Business partner 12 16.00 6 50.00 6 50.00
Technology supplier 11 14.67 9 81.82 2 18.18
Investors 11 14.67 4 36.36 7 63.64
Intermediate goods supplier 5 6.67 2 40.00 3 60.00
Total 75 100.00 49 65.33 26 34.67
Inter-organizational relationships
Legenda:
Nodes Red nodes = H-Farmers Blue nodes = external organizations Ties Pink lines = business partners Green lines = investors Grey lines = clients Blue lines = technology supplier Red lines = intermediate goods suppliers Black lines = service providers Source: Grandinetti and Sedita 2014
Information sources
Information sources Sum of scores Variation
Product
development
Marketing
H-Farm Staff 46 46 =
H-Farmers 36 27 -
Workshops/seminars in H-Farm 32 33 +
Investors 31 37 +
On-line communities 28 35 +
External firms 27 27 =
Freelance/external consulting 25 28 +
Workshop/seminars out of H-Farm 22 29 +
Universities/research centres 22 20 -
Source: Grandinetti and Sedita 2014
So what? • A NBI offers an extensive network of business relationships that start-ups
can use to make their fledging process faster and more efficient (Hansen et al., 2000).
• There are important relationships not only with external stakeholders but also within the incubator, whether as inter- organizational relationships or social ties (Bøllingtoft and Ulhøi, 2005).
• The role of the team that manages the incubator is twofold.
– On the one hand, it works as an enabler and facilitator of relationships for start-ups, offering them the possibility of leveraging on the reputation of the incubator, which helps to legitimate their activities and so mitigates the liability of newness (Baum et al., 2000).
– On the other hand, it also develops intense interactions with start-ups, conveying relevant information and knowledge (Scillitoe and Chakrabarti, 2010).
• The results demonstrate that it is the co-presence of interpersonal and inter-organizational interactions that makes the incubator a vital environment and qualifies it as a specific type of entrepreneurial ecosystem (Staber, 2012)
References
• Grandinetti R., Sedita S.R. (2014) Relationships at work in a networked incubator. The case of H-Farm. Paper presented at the 30th EGOS Colloquium, Rotterdam, July 3–5, 2014.
• Stinchcombe, A.L. 1965. Social structure and organizations, in: March, J.C. (Ed.), Handbook of Organizations. Rand McNally, Chicago, pp. 142–193.
• Von Zedtwitz, M., Grimaldi, R. 2006. Are service profiles incubator-specific? Results from an empirical investigation in Italy. Journal of Technology Transfer, 31 (4), 459–468.
