Exploration of technical debt in start-ups

Context: Software start-ups are young companies aiming to build and market software-intensive products fast with little resources. Aiming to accelerate time-to-market, start-ups often opt for ad-hoc engineering practices, make shortcuts in product engineering, and accumulate technical debt. Objective: In this paper we explore to what extent precedents, dimensions and outcomes associated with technical debt are prevalent in start-ups. Method: We apply a case survey method to identify aspects of technical debt and contextual information characterizing the engineering context in start-ups. Results: By analyzing responses from 86 start-up cases we found that start-ups accumulate most technical debt in the testing dimension, despite attempts to automate testing. Furthermore, we found that start-up team size and experience is a leading precedent for accumulating technical debt: larger teams face more challenges in keeping the debt under control. Conclusions: This study highlights the necessity to monitor levels of technical debt and to preemptively introduce practices to keep the debt under control. Adding more people to an already difficult to maintain product could amplify other precedents, such as resource shortages, communication issues and negatively affect decisions pertaining to the use of good engineering practices.Comment: ICSE-SEIP '18: Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practic

Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Shark Tank Shouldn\u27t be the Model

For the past half century, innovation has driven the economic growth that has made the American economy the envy of the world. For most of this period, venture capitalists provided not only the capital that new innovative companies needed, but also the management expertise

Venture Capitalism as a Mechanism for Knowledge Governance: the Emergence of the Markets for Knowledge Intensive Property Rights

Venture capitalism is an outcome of the ICT Revolution, which made its appearance first in the US during the late 1970s and early 1980s and then in other countries including Israel during the 1990s. It explains the new pervasive role of small firms in the introduction of technological innovations and the rise of research and development expenditures in the US in the last decade of the XX century. Venture capitalism is a major institutional innovation based upon the identification of economies of scope in the transactions of technological knowledge bundled with managerial competence, reputation, screening procedures and equity. It has paved the way to the emergence of new surrogate markets for knowledge, i.e. financial markets specialized in the trade of knowledge intensive property rights with important benefits in terms of economic of size in portfolio management and hence profitability of investments in high-tech start- ups. The emergence of venture capitalism has important effects in national system of innovation of advanced countries, and it is a powerful mechanism for the production, dissemination and integration of knowledge in advanced capitalistic economies, and thereby a main driver of a ‘knowledge-based’ growth.Venture capitalism, Start-up companies, Nested transactions, Knowledge bundling, Knowledge intensive property rights, Market creation, Surrogate markets for knowledge, Knowledge governance mechanisms.

Financing technology transfer

Global policy discussions increasingly focus on innovation and the knowledge economy as a driver of long-term growth. In parallel new forms of innovation processes are emerging, notably open innovation and innovation networks stressing the importance of connections between various stakeholders. Links between universities and the business sector are of particular importance as many inventions come out of universities but have to be further developed to become economically relevant innovations. New financing instruments and attracting private investors to technology transfer (TT) are necessary but difficult as the patterns of risk and information in this “in-between area” is complex: Technology is not basic anymore and it requires large amounts of capital to be scaled up – with uncertain market prospects. This paper addresses new financial instruments for TT, building on European Investment Fund’s experience in this field.Technology Transfer; Financing; Innovation; Commercialisation; Funding gap; Patents; Licensing; Intellectual Property

East Midlands food & drink sector strategy

The food & drink sector is one of four priority sectors identified in the regional economic strategy, A Flourishing Region. This document sets out a strategy for maximising the contribution of the food & drink sector to the economic development of the East Midlands

A new business model?

The paper delivers an analysis of the “New Economy” focussing on the roles of new business models, the capital market and venture capital. The capital market created a double standard in the 1990s: A high return on capital was required from old economy firms whereas money was thrown at new economy firms which had a business idea that stimulated the fantasies of financial investors but no earnings. Through the gradual burst of the tech stock bubble since spring 2000 it has come to the eyes of the public that many new economy start ups were unable to recover their costs. This paper shows that business models related to the internet can only work under certain conditions. The sectoral distribution of power, for example, determines the prospects of the single firms to realise e-commerce in a profitable way. Digital technologies do not necessarily enhance profitability. On the contrary, they can increase competition and lead to lower profit rates. The limitation of competition appears to be a central condition of successful cost recovery. The venture capital cycle has been an important driving force of the new economy boom, but it can also be momentum of a longer crisis. Enormous amounts of money have been channeled to new economy start ups hoping that successful IPOs will one day give venture capitalists a high return. But the burst of the bubble has brought down the IPO activity and interrupted the valorisation cycle of venture capital. Financial investors have reacted to the crisis by shifting their capital to even riskier investments, as the come-back of hedge funds indicates. --

The Growth of Knowledge-intensive Entrepreneurship in India, 1991-2007

There is enough consensus to show that India's economic performance since 1991 is a direct result of the economic liberalization measures that have been put in place. One of the outcomes of this improved performance is the growth of innovations in the country. This was accompanied by or caused by the emergence of a number of technology-based enterprises. This paper takes a critical look at the available quantitative evidence on the growth of knowledge or technologybased entrepreneurship. It then looks at five facilitating factors for the emergence of this phenomenon in terms of the existence of increased market opportunities, availability of financial support schemes in the form of venture capital funds, existence and enlargement of a number of government programmes, a number of private sector initiatives and education, and training leading to the supply of technically trained personnel. The paper concludes with certain policy suggestions for the continued sustenance of this activity.knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship, knowledge process, outsourcing venture capital, angel financing, business incubators

NewSpace and the european space economy

A guide for engineers to better understand space economy. A guide for policy-makers to better understand the space sector. The statement above is probably the best way to sum up the main goal of this work: to connect space engineering and economy in a theoretical approach. The proposal for the thesis is to study the economy of space in Europe and the main challenges for the crucial future decades. This work is intended to give insight into economic strategies in order to enhance the growth of the space sector whilst also detailing the state of space technology in Europe today. This thesis should be useful as a guide for those looking to comprehend the state of space technology in Europe, those interested in creating new companies and those who want to invest in space technology. The broader goal is to focus on solving the fundamental Five Ws with respect to space technology and its socio-economic consequences in Europe. All fundamental questions must be assessed avoiding prior subjective assumptions and/or desired outcomes. Space is experiencing a major shift from concentrated government-lead projects to an ever-increasing volume of commercial activities. This thesis aims to break down the fundamental aspects that are driving the current transformation of space1 while also taking a deep dive into the European space sector, future space economy trends and Europe’s role in the global space sector. In addition, the future of space clusters, space agencies and private-public interactions will be studied. The statement and aim are broad indicators of the contents of the thesis. Before defining specific objectives, some of the topics need defining in a more precise way. Let us make a list of relevant topics to be assessed in the thesis: The emerging NewSpace and Space 4.0 agenda proposed and adopted by ESA require space technologies to be developed coordinating public and private sectors. The rapid increase of private market ecosystems in space in the US and the emerging Indian and Chinese Space markets urge Europe to develop strategies to compete by fostering new private endeavours and stimulating the creation of new markets. Space in Europe may focus on optimizing regional technology clusters paying more attention on regions which could play a larger role in ESA’s industrial policy in the future. Considerations on the creation of new high-tech jobs for social and political concerns would create new opportunities to least developed countries. New financing models or investment communities to effectively catalyse dynamic risk capital investments and additional private investments in the sector. This can be done by studying economic profitability, its relation to specific space technologies and dependency on short/long term growths. A new approach to further linking universities, research institutions, private companies and ESA could be an interesting tool to fully develop student skills and interactions in the real world. An overview of clusters and ecosystems can be key to understand how policy makers can stimulate the growth of the space sector

Networks in Entrepreneurship

The value of networks as integral part of the explanation of entrepreneurial success is widely acknowledged. However, the network perspective lacks specification of the various dimensions of a network and their impact on the early development of a venture. We make a distinction between a Schumpeterian start-up pursuing a radical innovation and a Kirznerian venture on basis of an incremental innovation. This distinction is introduced as a contingency in the way networks contribute to the ability of the entrepreneur to discover opportunities, to get resources, and to gain legitimacy. In this explorative study three cases on high technology firms in The Netherlands provide empirical material to develop a number of propositions on the network effect on the survival or performance of start-ups.networks;discovering opportunities;entrepreneurial processes;high-tech entrepreneurship;start-up firms