Business Model Design & Lean Start-up Approach: a liason between strategy and entrepreneurship

While theories on Entrepreneurship and Strategy has often followed two independent paths, scholars have recently recognized the importance to integrate these two literature streams, naming this intersection as “strategic entrepreneurship”. However, a literature analysis showed the existence of several “stand-alone” and unstructured theories. Apart from such theoretical gap, a “practical” gap also exists whereas new venture entrepreneurs face a lot of difficulties in order to find a suitable approach to successfully launch their start-ups. This study aims at investigating and evaluating the concrete contribution of the combined use of Business Model Design (BMD) & Lean Startup (LSA) approach. By taking advantage of the direct experience in a School of Management, four new ventures have been investigated, allowing to compare the different approaches followed by entrepreneurs (traditional Business Plan approach versus Business Model Design & Lean Startup approach). The findings reveal that, in high dynamic, turbulent and complex environments, such as high tech market segments, the simultaneous use of BMD&LSA provided better performances compared to those start-ups that followed a more traditional approach based on Business Plan. The empirical analysis has been conducted through the action research methodology by interacting with the digital start-ups investigated.