This study examines how venture capitals (VCs) value crowd-based decisions compared to expert decisions from the perspective of signaling theory. We collect data on both crowd-funded startups and matching angel-funded startups. We track sequential financing rounds and analyze whether VCs show different valuations of the two types of startups. Our results show no statistically significant differ...

(’early-stage firm’ OR ’early-stage company’ OR ’high-tech venture’ OR ’high-tech ventures’ OR ’high-tech start-up’ OR ’high-tech start-ups’ OR ’high-tech startups’ OR ’high-tech startup’ OR ’start-up company’ OR ’start-up companies’ OR ’startup company’ OR ’startup companies’ OR ’software startup’ OR ’lean startup’ OR ’lean start-up’ OR ’lean startups’ OR ’software startups’ OR ’software packa...

WORKING PAPERS The Impact of Venture Capital on the Life Cycles of Startups Job Market Paper Abstract: How do VCs select startups to fund over multiple rounds? To study this question, I develop a dynamic two-sided matching model of VC funding. Using a handcollected database including both VC-funded and non-VC-funded startups, I estimate the determinants of investment selection and the effects o...

Tech startups typically approach requirements gathering differently from the process that is used to develop requirements in existing businesses and for existing products. Many of these startups operate in "stealth mode", taking care to minimize the number of people with whom they share their innovative ideas. It’s common for these startups to create a succession of early releases, and apply us...

It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups. In this study,...

This paper examines the dynamic role of financial resources—available through rounds of venture capital financing—on the growth strategies of startups. We investigate three different roles and their evolution over time. 1) We examine whether financial resources constrain the growth of startups and whether rounds of funding unbind this constraint. 2) We investigate the role of financial resource...

In order to handle intense time pressure and survive in dynamic market, software startups have to make crucial decisions constantly on whether to change directions or stay on chosen courses, or in the terms of Lean Startup, to pivot or to persevere. The existing research and knowledge on software startup pivots are very limited. In this study, we focused on understanding the pivoting processes ...

We analyze the market entry problem faced by startups that must integrate their service or product with one or more complementary technologies. The problem is especially challenging when the complementary technologies have large but uncertain cost reduction potentials. The market for intermittent renewable power generation (e.g., wind, solar) combined with storage (e.g., battery, pumped reservo...

For enterprises of all sizes, sustainability is becoming increasingly important. Accordingly, there has been a noticeable increase in academic literature in the field of sustainability management and related tools and approaches. While the academic and practical contributions are growing in this field, it appears that literature has overlooked certain type of enterprise, namely the microenterpr...

Typical management strategies proven to work in already established businesses do not work as expected in startups. Startups do not yet have a business model and product that they could focus on, but are still looking for a working business model. Lean Startup is a method for startup management that focuses on quick iteration and on fast learning to find an iterable business model. As a method,...