The development process of the right team in early stage start-ups

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to create grounded theory to reveal the problems of the right team development process of the early stage start-ups and to explain how the main challenges of the process are being solved. A structured grounded theory (GT) has been chosen based on the combination of deductive and inductive approaches, revealing a contextual epistemological view, which is important when explaining the phenomenon through the experience of the research participants. GT helped to reveal concepts and their relations, relevant to the understanding of a right team of start-ups. The concept of the right team of an early stage start-up includes primary founders having the right competences, having a team leader and other team members having the right competences. The competences of the right team include knowledge, experience and characteristics that influence the development process and help successfully overcome the challenges of an early stage start-up.