Abstract
Software startups develop innovative products for which there are typically no customers to refer to elicit requirements. Often, these companies develop a set of features without a better understanding of customer needs. An experiment-based approach to validate hypotheses about the customer and market could increase their chance of success or, at least, accelerate their realization of the product worthlessness. The first step of an experiment-based approach is to elicit hypotheses to guide experiments. Software startups base their products on business assumptions, but there is a lack of understanding of how these assumptions are formed and how teams could elicit hypotheses systematically. To fill this gap, we performed an empirical study consisted of two steps. First, we explored based on which assumptions startups define their products using a multiple case study. The results indicate that these companies developed their products based on founders’ assumptions derived from their previous experience. Second, we investigated cognitive mapping as a tool to elicit hypotheses systematically with two software startups. The results indicate that this approach can serve as the basis of a method to elicit hypotheses in early-stage software startups.
Highlights
In a recent position paper [15], we argued the need for Hypotheses Engineering to handle hypotheses in an experiment-driven approach in a similar way in which Requirements Engineering handles requirements in a traditional software development process
We performed an empirical study divided into two phases, and each consisted of an exploratory multiple-case study
We evaluated a technique to elicit hypotheses based on the first phase results. It consisted of interviews with startup founders who had the initial ideas. Both founders interviewed in this phase recently did a course where several methodologies and techniques were presented, including Lean Startup and Business Model Canvas
Summary
The use of experiments to understand the business value is a recent trend in software engineering [5,13] In this context, experimentation is a process of continuously validating product assumptions, transforming them as hypotheses, prioritizing, and testing them following the scientific method to support or refute them [13]. Experimentation is a process of continuously validating product assumptions, transforming them as hypotheses, prioritizing, and testing them following the scientific method to support or refute them [13] This notion comprises several techniques like prototypes, controlled experiments [5], and problem or solution interviews [13]. The startup prepares to scale regarding technical and operational aspects. On these two early-stages, teams focus on finding a relevant problem and solution. The startup aims to reach the desired market participation, and, in the last stage, it progresses into an established company
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