Multimedia Prototyping for Early-Stage Startups Endurance: Stage for New Normal?

Multimedia prototypes of varying degrees of fidelity and interactivity could be a powerful tool for early stage startups to validate their business model assumptions especially product value proposition. This grounds on the prototype"s ability to enhance user experience (UX) thereby making their feedback more accurate and reliable. This article reports practical experiences with consultancy projects involving European early stage startups focusing on the cocreation process of value proposition innovation amid pandemic. This includes the challenges faced in interacting with onsite customers, multimedia prototyping as a tool to foster remote customer involvement, and different challenges involved in prototype-driven cocreation like intellectual property rights, federal laws, motivation rewards, tool selection, and balancing customer expectations. The involvement of remote customers is fostered by the combination of varying degrees of fidelity and interactivity. Higher fidelity and interactivity prototypes are more applicable when a startup has a continuously increasing customer base, better market understanding, and customers having better product understanding. The practical experience indicates that resource-constrained startups could be greatly benefitted from the adoption of multimedia prototyping in their market research. The multimedia prototype development technologies could be easily adopted in startup business practices owing to zero purchase cost, ease of use, and usefulness. Their adoption is expected to become a norm for the 'new normal” as the role of multimedia prototypes is trivial for lean startups enhancing the value of design thinking as well as customer development processes. However, there is an urgent need to define a systematic process for the selection of prototype development tools meeting the business needs and their seamless integration in startup business practices, thereby leveraging across the wider spectrum of prototyping tools marke

What influences the speed of prototyping? An empirical investigation of twenty software startups

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, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty European software startups. The results are two folds, firstly we propose a prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2) team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To speed up a startups progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototypingComment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version can be accessed at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_2, XP2017, Cologne, German

Video Game Development in a Rush: A Survey of the Global Game Jam Participants

Video game development is a complex endeavor, often involving complex software, large organizations, and aggressive release deadlines. Several studies have reported that periods of "crunch time" are prevalent in the video game industry, but there are few studies on the effects of time pressure. We conducted a survey with participants of the Global Game Jam (GGJ), a 48-hour hackathon. Based on 198 responses, the results suggest that: (1) iterative brainstorming is the most popular method for conceptualizing initial requirements; (2) continuous integration, minimum viable product, scope management, version control, and stand-up meetings are frequently applied development practices; (3) regular communication, internal playtesting, and dynamic and proactive planning are the most common quality assurance activities; and (4) familiarity with agile development has a weak correlation with perception of success in GGJ. We conclude that GGJ teams rely on ad hoc approaches to development and face-to-face communication, and recommend some complementary practices with limited overhead. Furthermore, as our findings are similar to recommendations for software startups, we posit that game jams and the startup scene share contextual similarities. Finally, we discuss the drawbacks of systemic "crunch time" and argue that game jam organizers are in a good position to problematize the phenomenon.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Game

Helsinki Startup City Guide

This thesis is a product-oriented thesis. The aim of the thesis is to create valuable and quality content for the commissioning party, StartUs. The content is educational and takes form as a guide. The guide was done with the support of Haaga-Helia StartUp School. The theoretical framework consists of startup and content marketing theory, and is essential in providing the reader of this thesis the understanding of why the guide is important for the commissioning party and its target audience. Defining a startup can be tricky as there are several different definitions to what is a startup. In addition, not all startups are alike as there are multiple types of startups each of its own goals and definition of success. All of the startup types can benefit from incorporating lean startup methodologies. Some of the core principles of the lean startup methodology are Customer Development and the build-measure-learn loop both of which ultimately allow startups to avoid failing and creating a greater demand for their product or service through the understanding of the true needs of the customers. Nowadays, content marketing is imperative for a company in order to gain visibility and reach the right audience. In order to stand out from competitors and achieve the attention of consumers and fulfill the company’s business goals, relevant and valuable content must be produced and distributed. The product of this thesis is the Helsinki Startup City Guide. It is a practical guide for startup enthusiasts and everyone interested and considering to establish a startup company in Helsinki. The guide lists the most relevant information one must know about the startup ecosystem of Helsinki. This thesis and the product were produced within three weeks due to limited time constraints. Both the author and the commissioning parties are pleased with the end result of the product

Does maturity level influence the use of agile UX methods by digital startups? Evaluating design thinking, lean startup, and lean user experience

Context: Agile UX methods such as Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Lean User Experience have been employed to deliver customer value and improve organizational performance. However, there is a lack of studies that assess how these tools are used at different stages of maturity of digital startups. Objective: The present study aims to compare the knowledge of graduated, incubated, and pre-incubated digital startups at university incubators concerning the use of Agile UX methods so that weaknesses and opportunities can be identified to provide co founders and scholars with new strategic insights. Method: Six reduced focus groups were conducted with 14 members of the six selected startups via multiple case studies. Answers were registered by researchers and then analyzed using an inductive process and codification. Results: The results indicated that digital startups had contact with consumers through market research, viability analysis, and product discontinuity. However, except for one startup, deficiencies in co-founders’ participation throughout developing products and services projects were identified. As far as the multiple case studies are concerned, Design Thinking and Lean Startup were employed by four of the startups, while two of them used the Lean User Experience method due to its higher maturity level. Conclusion: Although all Agile UX methods were employed, all six digital startups reported having made adaptations to the methods or to have used them only partially. Finally, it was concluded that the maturity level influences the Agile UX methods of each digital startup according to its nature and its stage of development in the market.Campus Lima Centr

Early Validation of High-Tech Start-ups by Using Big Data

Source at https://circulareconomy.europa.eu/platform/en/news-and-events/all-events/ispim-innovation-conference-2023.Majority of the start-ups fail in the early stage of the development due to lack of validation. This paper focuses on high-tech start-ups and investigates the use of data and/or big data at this stage. The study found that early-stage start-ups fail because they create products or services not needed in the market. Early validation through an agile approach can help these young companies to manoeuver through a turbulent external environment. The results show that big data or data can act as a support at this stage. However, there are various barriers that need to be addressed for successful data adoption. The paper proposes an early validation user guide (EVU) to overcome these barriers and make data adoption easier. The EVU can provide start-ups the tools to use big data or data as a support for early validation based on the market context of the start-ups