Development of a Life Cycle Model for Deep Tech Startups

Abstract

Startups with a technological focus usually pursue the overarching goal of scaling and establishing themselves as a corporate with a product portfolio as quickly as possible. Deep tech startups in particular identify market niches in which no established players are present and aim to disrupt existing or create new markets with deep technology innovations. In this context, deep tech startups face the challenge of not only developing their organization, but also developing their technology and building a market in parallel. Here, a collaboration with a corporate could be helpful, but, yet often fails due to the insufficient knowledge about life cycle stages and associated goals. To date the goals of deep tech startups in their specific life cycle stages are not precisely formulated in literature. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to develop a life cycle stage model for deep tech startups that enables the explication and pursuit of tangible goals for the individual stages. In the context of a literature review, existing approaches for the description of life cycles of startups as well as goals in the development of organizations are examined. Deficits are then discussed and suitable life cycle stages as well as goal dimensions for the development of a deep tech startup are derived. The life cycle model is based on five distinct development dimensions of startups, and, thereby, enables the derivation of generic goals.