Lifestyle entrepeneurship in technology start-ups: the case of "piri" mobile application

Abstract

Purpose - Lifestyle entrepreneur is attributed to those business owners who have an aspiration for self-management and independence but with an emphasis on their quality of life with respect to their livelihood. In line with their lifestyles, these entrepreneurs are mostly motivated by the factors such as balance between work and family life, sufficient and comfortable living, freedom and flexibity rather than economic drives, such as enormous financial gains or business growth. Methodology - Lifestyle entrepreneurship has long been associated with tourism or hospitality domain, especially with accodomation, bed & breakfast or guest house services. Acknowledging that the term is used for entrepreneurs who establish a business corresponding with their lifestyle, with the motivating factor of achieving better life quality and being their own boss, this study aims to build on existing lifestyle entrepreneurship conceptualization by transferring it to a technology start-up, simply by taking Piri mobile application as a case study. Findings - Piri is an audio walk tour application that allows users to listen to the stories of cities from the tour guides as the users take one- or two-hour tours. It is developed by an entrepreneur who quitted professional business life because of challenging colleagues and demanding bosses, traveled all around the world for two years and created Piri as he returned back to homeland. An in-depth interview held with the entrepreneur of Piri revealed that lifestyle entrepreneurship of a technology start-up might be considered as a constrained lifestyle entrepreneurship where the entrepreneur has strong economic or growth motives but constrained by the desire of a particular lifestyle. Conclusion - Results of the study indicate that lifestyle entrepreneurship can be observed in knowledge-intensive industries. Our specific case study on a mobile application developer showed that, technology start-ups may serve as means of self-realization, self-reflection, freedom, flexibility and social impact for entrepreneurs in addition to economic benefits. The findings of the study provide managerial and marketing implications for technology start-ups.