Start-ups, fast-growing companies that pioneer new markets by overcoming scarce resources with innovative technologies and ideas, are already a growth engine in many countries. However, it is highly unlikely that startups will prove their business mod...
Start-ups, fast-growing companies that pioneer new markets by overcoming scarce resources with innovative technologies and ideas, are already a growth engine in many countries. However, it is highly unlikely that startups will prove their business models and grow into scale-ups, scalable and sustainable companies. In order for startups to grow into scale-ups, they must clearly define growth stages, set key indicators that must be achieved at each stage, and use data to determine whether they can move on to the next stage. Startups have been developing startup analytic models to define growth stages and their key indicators, Lean Analytics, which synthesizes the models, consists of five growth stages - empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue and scale, It presents key indicators and criteria for startups to be achieved at each stage. Many startups use Lean Analytics as guidelines. However, many startups fail because of lack systematic customer understanding and customer development methods.
This research started with the assumption that service design that looks at services from a holistic perspective and emotionally sympathizes with customers' pain can help startups grow into scale-ups. Currently, the use of service design in startups is trivial. While some leading service design companies have collaborated with startups, most of them deal only with the development of prototypes at early stage. Overcoming these limitations, this study presents a service design tool utilization strategy that helps service design in the overall growth stage of the startup.
The methods of study in this paper are as follows. First, analyze the growth phase of startup and characteristics of each type of business and define the key quantitative indicators of startup. Second, by reflecting the studies and works of industry, academia and government, we define a list of service design tools suitable for startup conditions and develop a list of service design tools classified according to process, purpose and participant. Third, based on the growth stage of the startup and the classification of service design tools, the case analysis framework is developed to analyze the four startups that provide successful SaaS services. The analysis finds service design activities, tools and qualitative indicators that start-ups must do at each stage of growth. Fourth, by combining theoretical considerations and case analysis, the first strategic model to apply service design tools for startup growth stages is developed. Using Delphi technique to verify and supplement this model in three stages, it proves that service design tools help startups achieve key indicators in each stage of growth. Fifth, the theoretical consideration, case analysis and expert evaluation are all synthesized to develop the final "strategic model to apply service design tools for startup growth stages" and present the utilization of this model.
Through this study, a "strategic model to apply service design tools for startup growth stages" that summarizes the goals, service design activities, service design tools, quantitative indicators and qualitative indicators that should be achieved by start-ups at each stage of growth is developed, and it proved that successful start-ups have already implicitly utilized service design.
This model will be applied to various start-ups in this field and will be of practical help to start-up growth.