What happens after market validation? Experimentation for scaling in technology-based startups

Silvia Sanasi, Antonio Ghezzi and Angelo Cavallo

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2023, vol. 196, issue C

Abstract: Scaling is one of the most critical phases in the lifecycle of technology-based startups: failure to scale often translates into failure to survive. Entrepreneurial experimentation has emerged as a method to reduce the likelihood of startup failure by anticipating market information. However, previous studies only described experimentation as the means to achieve market validation during the early stages of a startup's lifecycle. In our study, we have inductively investigated experimentation in technology-based startups after they had achieved market validation, conducting a comparative multiple-case study on four technology-based startups operating as digital platforms for financial and marketing services. Our findings conclude that technology-based startups continue to experiment extensively as they scale up. We present a process model of how experimentation for scaling focuses on probing for new customer segments, experimenting on customer relationships and channels, whilst carefully pacing and prioritizing experiments, and selecting the relevant growth metrics to monitor. Our study thus extends the current understanding of entrepreneurial experimentation beyond the accomplishment of market validation to the phase of scaling. This article also provides practical guidelines for technology entrepreneurs to direct their efforts towards experimentation during the challenging scaling phase.

Keywords: Technology-based scaling; Digital startups; Entrepreneurial experimentation; Lean startup; Growth hacking; Scientific method; Entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162523005243
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:196:y:2023:i:c:s0040162523005243

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122839

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().