Agile Business Model Innovation in Digital Entrepreneurship: Lean Startup Approaches

Abstract Digital startups in the early stages of their development frequently undergo innovation to their value architecture and Business Model. A set of pragmatic methods drawing on lean and agile principles has recently been proposed to support digital entrepreneurs facing Business Model Innovation (BMI), known as Lean Startup Approaches (LSAs). However, the theoretical and practical relationship between BMI and LSAs in dynamic digital environments has seldom been investigated. To fill this gap, our study draws on an exploratory multiple-case study based on three digital multisided platform startups to craft a unified framework that can disclose the relationship between BMI, LSAs and Agile Development (AD), within the context of Strategic Agility. Our findings, which emerge from the unified framework, show that LSAs can be employed as agile methods to enable Business Model Innovation in Digital Entrepreneurship. These findings are then organized around a set of propositions, with the aim of developing a research agenda directed towards integrating BMI, LSAs and AD processes and methods.

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