Ciclo di vita ed evoluzione del modello di business delle startup high tech italiane

The present study comes from the will to investigate the issues concerning the startup business model. As will be described in the first two chapters, the literature about this topic is very recent and extremely fragmented, strongly developed along patterns that are rarely correlate to each other; the identification of this gap was the trigger event that gave birth to this work. The startup lifecycle and the business model lifecycle are strongly linked to each other, so as to influence the respective definitions, but until now, in literature, they have always studied separately. However, the framework described in this work considers them jointly. The study described below, starting with a literature analysis and a data collection from primary (direct interviews) and secondary sources, applies the case study methodology to map the business model and the lifecycle of High-Tech Italian startups; to analyze their business model in relation to their lifecycle stage so it is possible to identify relevant characteristics and generalize them in an archetypal business model that can be used as a guideline by startups with similar characteristics that crossing the same lifecycle phase; to evaluate changes of the features of archetypal business model along the different stages of the startup lifecycle. The framework proposed answers to open research questions about the jointly study of the startup lifecycle and the business model evolution. Phases of business model creation and definition took place during the birth of the startup lifecycle and testing phase represents the transition to the introduction stage in which is done the commercialization; adaptation and improvement phases lead to the extension phase which is typical of growth stage; after all, the business model consolidation took place during the development stage while the termination phase during the exit. The revision, instead, is transversal to the whole process and only if necessary can lead to the reformulation or the termination by write-off. The framework can be useful both for academics, as it fits between the studies on business model design in entrepreneurship field, both in practice, because it can be useful for the actors of the startup ecosystem (either investors or startuppers) as a guideline to evaluate the business model "maturity" according to the lifecycle stage.