Start-ups have played and still play a vital role in national and global economies. To grow and maintain competitiveness, companies need to innovate, and this is the engine of market growth. However, existing studies do not provide sufficient guidance and explanation on how companies in the early stages of life can successfully define a market for radical innovation. Some previous studies have focused on market niche and breakthrough innovation, others on start-ups and their radical innovation, and others on entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities.  Therefore, the objective of this master’s thesis is to systematically address and explain how start-ups with their radical innovation can define a market and what dynamic capabilities are necessary to reach it successfully. This master's thesis presents a qualitative case study, and the results show that start-ups can face several challenges when defining a market, especially when talking about radical innovation. However, the deployment of dynamic capabilities in a constant manner can support start-ups in the complex process of the delimitation of the market. These capabilities are essential for start-ups not only to shape the offer but also to deal with uncertain environments and to adapt to changes in the market. The findings of this thesis contribute to sharpening the theoretical framework of dynamic capabilities in an entrepreneurial environment. Entrepreneurs can benefit from the results as a practical guide when defining a market. Moreover, for academia, the results improved the dynamic capabilities framework with an illustration of the application of these capabilities in a real scenario.

Sustainability issues have been a popular and important topic on the world’s agenda the recent years, which has caused businesses to follow the policies of operating more sustainable. One of the latest introduced guidelines is the Global Goals imposed by the United Nations to be met by 2030. In light of these goals, awareness regarding sustainability issues among consumers and other stakeholders has increased, leading to that change is inevitable for businesses to start operating sustainably. The concept of sustainable business model innovation therefore becomes relevant. There is a lot of research regarding sustainable business model innovation. However, the research is heavily focusing on theoretical aspects of it, and less is given to the practical creation and implementation of sustainable business models. Further, less focus is given to start-up companies specifically. Due to the identified research gap, this study aims to answer the research question: “How can start-ups successfully create and implement sustainable business models to become an established actor on its specific market?” The purpose of this study is to create an understanding and contribute with extended knowledge of how sustainability is practiced in start-ups. More specifically, how sustainable business models are created and implemented in start-ups. A qualitative abductive approach was used to fulfill this purpose. Additionally, six semi-structured interviews were conducted with founders of start-ups and business coaches from Swedish incubators, which were structured based on the themes from the Lean Start-up Framework (LSF). This framework, along with the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (TLBMC) showed to be of importance after the theoretical review. The key findings retrieved displayed that the LSF is suitable to describe the sustainable start-up process as well. Yet, the TLBMC needs to be integrated to fulfill the purpose of sustainability. Further, the benefit versus impact is shown to be of great importance whereas the framework’s components were modified in that sense as well in those cases needed. This study theoretically contributes to extended knowledge and additional components of the Lean Start-up framework that are advocated to be crucial to create a sustainable business model. These additional components are further of value for the existing field of research. Practically, by the extended and modified framework, it offers valuable insight for entrepreneurs with a business idea where the purpose is to offer a sustainable value proposition. Lastly, this study contributes to a social level by providing guidelines on the implementation of sustainability in the business model, leading to the encouragement to operate sustainably and towards a better environment and society.

This project researches on the efficient use of social media for start-ups. Despite the fact that start-ups are considered to be an important part of the business world, social media strategies for start-ups is an area that has not been widely researched. Therefore, this project focuses on developing and presenting social media strategies and guidelines that can enable the businessgrowth of a start-up through networking. This thesis researches on the efficient use of social media for start-ups through the case studyof Sharplet, a start-up which operates in the e-learning industry. It should be noted that thedata are collected through qualitative interviews and benchmarking. The key findings of this research show that the efficient management of social media for startupsinvolves a strategizing procedure. Based on the analysis of the results of this research, asocial media strategy model is developed, consisting of four simple steps: researching,developing the strategy, realizing it, and evaluating the social media efforts. Since this model is simplified and it includes the most important steps of the strategizing procedure, it isconsidered to be appropriate and useful for start-ups that are willing to use social media,because it will enable them to be more effective on managing their social media accounts. Furthermore, this research provides some guidelines to start-ups. It is argued that start-upsshould use social media in order to network, and more specifically to build and maintainrelationships with various types of stakeholders that can enable the business growth. In termsof networking, the results suggest that Twitter is an appropriate social medium for start-ups tofocus their efforts on, because it is easy to connect with other users - while other social mediabuild on pre-existing relationships. In addition, according to the analysis of the resultsFacebook and LinkedIn could also be appropriate networking tools for start-ups. Moreover,the results suggest that start-ups can use social media tools that are available for free on theweb and that can enable the specific company to be more effective when managing their socialmedia accounts. Last but not least, the key findings of this research suggest that postingrelevant comments, engaging in discussions, and trying to build and maintain relationshipswith stakeholders that are important for the business development of the company are amongthe efficient social media practices for start-ups. In summary, based on the findings of this research a social media strategy model andguidelines for start-ups are proposed in order to enable start-ups to efficiently use social media. / Det här arbetet undersöker hur nystartade företag kan använda sociala medier på ett effektivtsätt. Trots att nystartade företag anses vara en viktig del av näringslivet så är sociala medierstrategier för nystartade företag ett relativt outforskat område. Det är därför detta projektfokuserar på att presentera sociala medier strategier och riktlinjer som kan hjälpa nystartadeföretag att skapa nya kontakter, expandera sina sociala nätverk och på detta sätt göraföretagstillväxt möjligt. Det här projektet använder fallstudie som forskingsmetod för att undersöka effektivaanvändningar av sociala medier för nystartade företag. Det bör noteras att Sharplet användtssom fallstudie och att Sharplet har med e-learning industrin att göra. Uppgifter samlats in ochanalyserats genom kvalitativa intervjuer och benchmarking/ prestandajämförelse. De viktigaste resultaten av denna forskning visar att en av de effektivaste användningen avsociala medier för nystartade företag innebär att formulera en strategi. Den socialamediestrategi modellen för nystartade företag som har utvecklats i denna projekt, är baseratpå resultatens analys. Modellen består av fyra enkla steg: forskning, strategiens formulering,att realisera den strategien, och att utvärdera den. Modellen har förenklats och den innehållerde viktigaste stegen i den strategiska processen. Eftersom modellen är simplicierad, så är detenkelt för nystartade företag att bli mer effektiva när de använder sociala medier. Det är därförmodellen anses vara passande och användbar för nystartade företag. Analysen av de viktigaste resultaten från denna forskning tyder på att nystartade företag skaanvända sociala medier för att utveckla och expandera deras nätverk, dvs att bygga ochuppehålla relationer med olika typer av intressenter som kan göra det möjligt för företagenstillväxt. När det gäller nätverk tyder resultaten på att nystartade företag ska fokusera på attanvända Twitter, eftersom på Twitter är det lätt att få kontakt med andra användare. Enligtanalysen av resultaten så kan Facebook och Linkedin också vara lämpliga verktyg förnystartade företag. När det gäller effektiva sociala mediemetoder för nystartade företag såtyder resultaten på att nystartade företag ska använda sociala medieverktyg som är passandeför det specifika företaget. Avslutningsvis, de viktigaste resultaten av denna forskning medavseende på de effektivaste metoderna tyder på att nystartade företag ska publicera intressantakommentarer, ska delta i diskussioner och ska försöka att bygga och underhålla relationer medintressenter som är viktiga för affärsutvecklingen. Sammanfattningsvis, en sociala mediestrategi modell och några riktlinjer för nystartadeföretag föreslås i denna uppsats, som kan göra det möjligt för nystartade företag att användasociala medier på ett effektivt sätt.

Purpose - The purpose of this research is to explore if there is a viable way for a newly brand to speed up the process of creating and acquiring the brand equity. Since branding is a very broad area, we narrow the research down to brand alliance for startups. With this research, we aim to deep into the subject to understand how this has been done and could be done.   Research Question - How can a start-up make brand associations with other well-known brands, in order to leverage their equity and acquire its own?   Methodology - Qualitative research method is applied through an interview to the case study company. This research is conducted in inductive reasoning which conforms to the qualitative paradigm. In addition, the research approach is an interpretive that has a view of subjectivism ontology. By looking into our case company, the description of each of the co-branding partnerships performed with its partners is examined. The information is gathered via an interview to the case company as well as secondary sources.   Findings - This research indicates that the case company has greatly benefited from the large number of co-branding partnerships with other well-known brands. It has benefited both in terms of gaining brand awareness and brand image, as well as accessing the customer base of its partners. It is an indication that a new start-up can speed up the process of branding and customers acquisition by engaging in co-branding partnerships.

The diploma thesis deals with the different ways of investment in Private Equity. The work is focused on investment decision making, investment process and due diligence. In the analytical part, the author evaluates the results of the questionnaire, which focuses on the factors of investment decision. Factors that investment decisions are divided into three categories examined by the author.

While it is now widely accepted that new firms growth is essential for the foundation of economic dynamism, knowledge about this early growth is still scattered. Indeed, very little is known about how new firms grow and develop over time. What types of distinct growth patterns do those firms exhibit? How do these growth patterns and corresponding firms differ from each others in terms of development and strategic choices? To better understand the process of new firm growth, recent entrepreneurship research stresses that there is a strong need for a new conceptual scheme and new longitudinal research methods. This is actually one of the main entrepreneurship research challenges. In this context, our aim is to provide new insights regarding the process of new firm growth. In this research, we develop and test an original methodology allowing the empirical taxonomy of early growth trajectories across multiple sectors, integrating both the multidimensional and dynamic aspects of growth. Our approach applies principal component and cluster analysis to a large sample of firms, using financial and demographic data collected over time to identify in a systematic way distinct growth stages. We use then sequence analysis and a Markov chain approach to extract and compare the trajectories of individual firms over time. This allows the identification of a limited number of typical growth trajectories, which are adopted by the majority of firms in our sample. Finally, internal replication is performed to validate the growth trajectories identified and bivariate analysis is used to examine the link between the identified growth trajectories and the demographic characteristics of the corresponding firms. We have applied our methodology to a sample of 741 Belgian firms created between 1992 and 2002 and which have grown above micro-firm size. Our approach allowed identifying four distinct growth stages and seven typical growth trajectories, which remain valid for the six first years of the majority of the firms in our sample. This taxonomy of early growth trajectories is consistent with individual patterns already identified in the literature and appears not to be sector-dependent. The major contribution of this doctoral thesis is that, based on empirical evidence, early growth appears to be neither a continuous (or life cycle based) nor idiosyncratic (or completely random) process. It can be adequately described through a limited number of typical growth trajectories, valid across sectors. Thus, our research brings insight regarding how new firm evolve over time and therefore contributes to our understanding and appreciation of the heterogeneity of the growth trajectory phenomenon. Next, our research provides also an original methodological approach allowing the systematic analysis of growth trajectories, which deals with key limitations identified in the literature regarding the need for a multidimensional and dynamic study of growth across multiple sectors. Our findings indicate that this novel systematic approach is useful for taxonomy development and therefore contributes to reduce the gap between the complexity of new firm growth process and the standard approaches often mobilised to deal with it. Finally, while our findings provide empirical and methodological support in early development of new firms study, they also provide many implications to entrepreneurial research and practices. Further researches are needed to improve our understanding of the dynamic growth process of new ventures. It should explore which endogenous and exogenous factors might explain why a majority of start-ups follow the seven identified typical growth trajectories. It could be also highly relevant to refine our taxonomy by examining the relationship between innovative and technological sources and growth trajectories, both in high and low technological industries. Finally, we should test the accuracy of the proposed taxonomy across countries as well as beyond the early stage of new firm development.

Throughout the last years, we have been able to experience one of the most significant economic disruptions in history: The Digital Revolution. In a world that becomes more and more digitalized, companies must get an understanding of the fundamental rules of doing business in the digitalized business world in order to be able to innovate effectively and succeed with their business. The purpose of this paper is to get an in-depth understanding on how the digitalization affected the dynamics of doing business, and what the necessary key components are according to the literature and interviewees to succeed as a business in the digital era. Our contribution to the theory is achieved by conducting a multiple-case study in which eight case companies were selected and interviewed via semi-structured interviews. Subsequently, a grounded analysis was conducted to identify the subjective success factors of the interviewees which resulted in five major themes which contribute significantly to a firm’s success. We came to the conclusion that the main success factors for Start-Ups in the digital transformation are: 1. Lean Approach to Customer Orientation, 2. Entrepreneurial Goals & Culture, 3. Participation in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, 4. Integration & Utilization of Third-Party Technologies, and 5. Acquisition of Capital for Business Growth.

The video game industry is a rapidly growing industry due to technology advancements andhas made video games to a mass phenomenon. The diffusion of today’s technologies has created and expanded the video game market, both demographical and geographical, which has attracted more customers and increased the intensity of the competition. Companies in the industry have to professionalize their marketing processes and business strategies in a moreflexible and quickly fashion than before to be able to stay competitive. An overcrowded market with thousands of products released every year creates problems for actors to get recognized. The purpose of this dissertation has been therefore to study small start-ups brand identity in its inception phase within the video game industry to assist their brand strategic approach and be able to strengthen their competitive advantage in a saturated market. The dissertation has adopted the corporate brand identity matrix framework by Urde (2013) and investigated the brand-driven elements in a start-up context; thus, the framework has only been applied incorporation-setting where the companies are large and known. Five indie game developers from northern Sweden participated in the study’s field research. The dissertation shows that the corporate brand identity matrix is adaptable for start-ups and are not dependent on the company size. Findings confirm early signs of brand identity and found correspondence between competence and value proposition, expression and personality and culture and relationship, which address interconnection between its brand-elements and its brand core. The unique findings where they all show signs of social engagements, passion and a fan-centric ambition of doing business and most of all everyone had a “community first” approach and were more inspired to deliver value to its customers rather than how they can achieve value for themselves. A concept model for start-ups in the inception phase of the video game industry has been made based on the empirical results of the study that can be adopted early in a company's start-up process and provide guidance and support for its future brand identity development to address the issues of discoverability.

Ett stort antal nya företag startas varje år och bara under första kvartalet 2015 startades 18 618 stycken. Vid start av nya företag krävs, av entreprenörer som startar det, en idé och en plan för hur detta ska genomföras. Idag utgör nystartade företags entreprenörer en central del i samhällsekonomin, vilket gör dem intressanta att studera. För att entreprenörerna ska lyckas med sitt företag är det viktigt att redovisningen fungerar. Flera tidigare studier diskuterar att entreprenörer inte har den kunskap om redovisning som krävs i nystartade företag och anledningen till varför flertalet entreprenörer inte lyckas med sitt företag är just avsaknaden av kunskap om redovisning. Syftet med studien har varit att öka förståelsen för externredovisningens roll i nystartade företag, vilket har gjorts genom att beskriva entreprenörers delaktighet i bokslutsprocessen. Vi har valt att dela in bokslutsprocessen i fyra faser, avstämnings- och periodiseringsfas, värderingsfas, bokslutsdispositionsfas samt årsredovisningsfas. En kvalitativ undersökning har använts under studien för att besvara syftet, där vi intervjuade tio entreprenörer från nio olika nystartade företag avseende deras delaktighet i bokslutsprocessen. Studiens resultat visar att samtliga entreprenörer är delaktiga i bokslutsprocessen, där de deltar i avstämnings- och periodiseringsfasen, värderingsfasen samt årsredovisningsfasen. Ingen av entreprenörerna deltog i bokslutsdispositionsfasen. I studien påvisas även att entreprenörer i nystartade företag tar hjälp av externa aktörer för att få ihop alla delar i bokslutsprocessen. Vi har använt oss av sense-making teorin för att få en förståelse om varför och på vilket sätt entreprenörer deltar i bokslutsprocessen, genom vilken vi fick fram flera värdeskapande anledningar till deltagandet. Det är svårt att dra en generell slutsats av vad som är en värdeskapande handling till följd av deltagande i de olika faserna för samtliga entreprenörer. Däremot går det att urskilja olika anledningar för de olika entreprenörerna som kan ses som värdeskapande. / A large number of new businesses are started every year and only in the first quarter of 2015, 18 618 businesses started up. Starting up a new business requires, by the entrepreneur that is starting it, an idea and a plan for how it should be implemented. Today entrepreneurs in start-ups are a central part of the economy, which makes them an interesting topic to study. For the entrepreneurs to succeed in their business, it is of importance that the accounting functions. Several previous studies discuss the fact that entrepreneurs do not have the knowledge about accounting that is required in start-ups. The reason why several entrepreneurs do not succeed in their business is in fact the lack of knowledge about accounting, as showed in previous studies. The main purpose of this paper was to increase the understanding of the importance of external accounting in start-ups, which have been done by describing the entrepreneur´s participation in the year-end procedure in start-ups. A qualitative approach was used during the study to answer the purpose, where we interviewed ten entrepreneurs from nine different start-ups regarding their participation in the year-end procedure. Empirical results conclude that all entrepreneurs are involved in the year-end procedure. The study also demonstrated that entrepreneurs in start-ups are taking help from external parties to put together the year-end procedure. We have used the sense-making theory to gain an understanding of why and how the entrepreneurs participate in the year-end procedure, by which we could obtain several value creating reasons for participation. It is difficult to draw a general conclusion of what a value-creating action is as a result of participation in the various phases for all entrepreneurs. However it is possible to distinguish various reasons for the different entrepreneurs that can be seen as value creating.

New ventures started by entrepreneurs need access to the right amount of financial resourcesin order to grow and expand businesses. Venture capital financing and partnerships withventure capital firms is a common route for entrepreneurial companies to acquire the neededfinancing for growing the venture, which in turn benefits a country’s economy as a whole.The partnership between the venture capital firm and the entrepreneur may involve conflicts,due to different goals and objectives towards the business, difference in management stylesand personal background as well as task and contextual conflicts, to mention some examples.We discovered a knowledge gap regarding conflicts between venture capital firms andentrepreneurs in Sweden and hence our aim with this study is to provide an answer on howventure capital firms and entrepreneurs are dealing with these potential conflicts in Sweden.To find out the answer, we reviewed selected and relevant literature on the subject andadapted a theoretical framework, based on existing literature. In terms of methodologicalapproach, we chose to be constructionists by following the abductive approach, in order toeffectively answer our research question and be able to add and complement our theoreticalframework, based on our empirical findings.Our empirical findings consists of four valuable interviews with venture capital firmmanagers and another four interviews with entrepreneurial CEOs and/or company founders,to get the view of both parties involved in venture capital partnerships. Based on ourempirical findings, our main conclusion is that the venture capital partnership often suffersfrom lacking communication from either or both parties, which could start or worsen theconflicts. Many of these problems are also derived by the vastly different backgrounds ofventure capital firm managers compared to entrepreneurs.Additionally, our study notes a tendency for less patience for conflicts among venture capitalfirms compared to entrepreneurs, as venture capital firms are willing to replace the currentCEO or make an early exit the venture or even liquidate its shares, if they deem problems assevere. On the other hand, entrepreneurs want to keep the dialogue going and seem to havemore patience. To mitigate the conflicts in the venture capital partnership, based on ourfindings, we propose that venture capital firms should hire managers or consultants with amore technical background when evaluating and working with certain entrepreneurs.Furthermore, venture capital firms may need to be more dynamic in terms of their controlmeasurements as opposed to being overly static on a long-term business plan which may getoutdated or lose relevancy.Entrepreneurs, nonetheless, need training and support in many cases, to understand how tocommunicate in business contexts and write business plans in order to facilitate thecollaboration with their venture capitalists.