Page - 69 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

identifies the advantages and disadvantages that digital startups face in the appli- cation of the lean startup approach (Ghezzi 2019) (Table 1). The prioritization, definition, and design of experiments (incl.MVPs) are some of themajor challenges that digital entrepreneurshave in the applicationof the lean startup approach to their business. One founder in the studymentioned that “lean tells you to build anMVP but gives you no clear guidelines or indications what- soever on how to do so” (Ghezzi 2019). In this article, we offer a structured approach to test digital business ideas and to identifyminimumviableproducts that help a startupwithin this journey. 2 (Theoretical) Background 2.1 Digital BusinessModels Abusinessmodel canbeunderstoodas thecore logicof afirm tocreate anddeliver value for its customersand tocapturevalue for itself (Zott et al. 2011;Göcke2016). When we talk about business models, it is very important to stress out that a businessmodel isnot the sameasa revenuemodel.Both termsaregettingmixedup very frequently inpractice andareoften seenas the same,which isnot thecase (see alsoGhaziani andVentresca 2005). A businessmodel is a holistic perspective on the overall setup of the business and includes every process along the value chain. Various conceptualizations of business models have been developed to guide researchers and practitioners alike to analyze or develop business models (e.g., Chesbrough andRosenbloom2002; Teece 2010;Gassmann et al. 2014; Schneider and Spieth 2013). The “Business Model Canvas” of Osterwalder and Pigneur (2011) and the “LeanCanvas” ofMaurya (2012) are prominent conceptualizations that are widely spread in practice. Central tomost of these conceptualizations are the components valueproposition, value creation, andvalue capture (Clauss2017). This includes the costmodel and the revenuemodel. The revenuemodel is thus a component of every businessmodel. Every company can run onmultiple business models (think different products) and onmultiple revenue streams. Also, a single businessmodel can be runwithmultiple revenuemodels.Wheneverweworkon a Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of applying the lean startup approach (Ghezzi 2019) Advantages 1. Reducing time and cost for startup testing (74%) 2. Aligning business idea to customer needs (68%) 3. Verifying and pivoting all businessmodel parameters (52%) 4. Receiving rounds offinancing (39%) Disadvantages 1. Defining and designingMVPs (82%) 2. Identifying and engaging early evangelists and trial users (69%) 3. Defining testing priorities and designing tests (52%) 4.Missing othermarket opportunities and threats (39%) 5. Obtaining information about the startup sources of advantage (36%) 72 L. Göcke and R.Weninger