Title: Towards understanding startup product development as effectual entrepreneurial behaviors,
Abstract: Software startups face with multiple technical and business challenges, which
could make the startup journey longer, or even become a failure. Little is
known about entrepreneurial decision making as a direct force to startup
development outcome. In this study, we attempted to apply a behaviour theory of
entrepreneurial firms to understand the root-cause of some software startup s
challenges. Six common challenges related to prototyping and product
development in twenty software startups were identified. We found the behaviour
theory as a useful theoretical lens to explain the technical challenges.
Software startups search for local optimal solutions, emphasise on short-run
feedback rather than long-run strategies, which results in vague prototype
planning, paradox of demonstration and evolving throw-away prototypes. The
finding implies that effectual entrepreneurial processes might require a more
suitable product development approach than the current state-of-practice.