What Influences the Speed of Prototyping? An Empirical Investigation of Twenty Software Startups

Abstract

Abstract. 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 startup's progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototyping.

From MVPs to Pivots: A Hypothesis-Driven Journey of Two Software Startups

“…Eric Ries listed several types of MVPs, for example, an explainer video, a landing page, a wire-frame, and a single feature prototype [8]. In Software Engineering context, Nguyen Duc et al discussed the throw-away prototype and the evolutionary prototype as an MVP [17]. MVP is also considered as a type of boundary object in startup context [3].…”

How do Startups Develop Internet-of-Things Systems - A Multiple Exploratory Case Study

“…Developers in software startups typically prioritize speed over quality when producing MVPs [15,17]. Bosch et al advocated for adjusting the Lean startup methodology to accommodate the development of multiple ideas and integrated them when the time for idea validation is too long [19].…”

“…(3) a startup that has at least a first running prototype, so its engineering practices are a relevant topic; and (4) a startup whose core value propositions are from services or products of Internet-of-Things applications From previous work [17,29], we have constructed a contact list of 219 startups. Other co-authors of this work added 22 hardware startups to that list.…”

Technical Debt Trade-Off - Experiences from Software Startups Becoming Grownups

“…Finally, if the startup has developed a fully operational product or service, then the market, either local or global, decides the startups growth potential. As shown in Figure 1, the transition of startups is also marked by the methodological evolution, from ad-hoc or customized development practices [17] to more principled approaches. A lean startup is a popular methodology among startups at early-stages and validation stages [20].…”