Successful Start-up Research Articles

Translocate, to fund or not to fund: challenges in funding an emerging market start-up

Subject area: Financial management – Specifically start-up valuations. Study level/applicability: Honours or masters level (professional or academic). Case overview: The case is around a tech start-up in the informal transport market in South Africa, that has obtained some government funding and developed a working SaaS. However, requires funding to expand and grow. Informal transport is significant in emerging and developing markets and the product is portable internationally. In South Africa, two listed companies (US and SA) were started with similar concepts in Logistics and private client market and are now global in 124 and 24 countries. Management of the venture capital firm are senior and experienced and have invested years and funding into this company, and while willing to offer equity had quite a high value in mind, the venture capital company (with an impact mandate) needs to decide whether to fund the start-up and negotiate a value. Expected learning outcomes: Characteristics of a successful start-up are formulating an appropriate discount rate, using real world data; performing a DCF and relative valuations given limited information; scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis; and the importance of negotiating (understanding managements side). Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Complexity academic level This case was written for use in financial management classes in either an academic full-time student (final year undergraduate/bachelor) or a postgraduate program with working students/professional (MBA) program level. Subject code CSS: 1: Accounting and finance.

STARTUP DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

The development of startups is a powerful factor in socio-economic progress. Ukraine has significant potential to create a new types of business, the introduction of production of goods and services that can satisfy changing and very diverse needs of society. Therefore, there is a need to analyze the features of implementation, the most important problems and startup’s risks. Ukraine has significant potential for the startup’s development, which is confirmed by its high position in a world rankings. At the same time, the activity in the implementation of startup projects in different regions differs significantly. The most successful startups were analyzed and the spheres of their realization were determined. Almost all of them are related to the field of computers and information modern technologies (IT), which indicates about the prospects for the development of this industry in the Ukraine. There are highlighted the main stages of the startup: Seed and development; Startup stage; Establishment and growth; Expansion stage; Maturity. And also justified the most important problems that come up during these stages. Implementation of startups is complicated by this factors, such as: difficult financial position; lack of information support; unfavorable investment climate; low support from the government; insufficient level of knowledges in the field of business development. There were identified the factors that determine the investment attractions of startups the necessity and directions of country’s support for startups are substantiated. Ukraine has significant potential: highly qualified engineering resources, lots of cool ideas and enterprising people, who are ready to implement business innovations. However, only with the effective support from the government to the entrepreneurship in the field of innovation, financial support, effective system of protection of intellectual property rights, the development of appropriate regulatory framework, which will regulate legal relations in the startups’ market and in the sphere of their investment, then Ukrainian startups projects will have significant potential to develop and growth.

Effect of exogenous K+ addition on the denitrification efficiency of high salinity wastewater treatment by anammox process at medium and low temperature: In-depth study

In this study, high-salinity wastewater was treated by the anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) process at medium and low temperature. Under the dual stress of salinity and low temperature, the anammox process was strengthened by exogenous addition of K+. Fast start-up of the anammox reactor was performed in 90 days. MLSS and MLVSS was 8388 mg/L and 7511 mg/L, respectively. The MLSS/MLVSS ratio was as high as 0.90 after the successful start-up of the reactor. The effects of sludge particle characteristics and denitrification efficiency with respect to gradual salinity gradient domestication at medium temperature (30 °C) was done. 30 g/L salinity stress inhibited the denitrification efficiency of the reactor. With the increase of salinity, the content of soluble extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) gradually increased and there was a sharp increase at 20 g/L salinity. The total nitrogen (TN) removal load was 0.64 kg/(m3·d) at low temperature (15 °C) and salinity 20 g/L with TN removal efficiency 88.81%. Under low temperature conditions, biomass and nitrite significantly inhibit the denitrification efficiency. Also, PS/PN ratio increases by 0.39 and the sludge granularity becomes worse. Static batch and continuous flow tests were performed to explore the effect of exogenous addition of K+ on the denitrification performance under anammox resistance salinity in the short-term and long-term experiments. Under the salinity stress of 6 g/L, X (compared to anammox activity) can be increased by 35.76%. With the increase of K+ concentration under medium and low temperature and high salinity, the denitrification efficiency first increased and then decreased. 5 mmol/L K+ was the best promotion point under medium temperature (30 °C) and high salinity (30 g/L), the TN removal efficiency was 86.22%, which was 10.88% higher than that of 0 mmol/L K+ intervention. The nitrogen removal rate (NRR) was increased from 0.83 kg/(m3·d) to 0.95 kg/(m3·d) increased by 10.87%. Under the optimal promotion point, 10 mmol/L K+ for low temperature (15 °C) and high salinity (20 g/L) the TN removal efficiency was 92.60% increased by 3.94%. Inhibition phenomenon appeared in 20 mmol/L K+ under medium and low temperature conditions.

Menstimulasi Para Ibu Anggota Kelompok Pengajian Menjadi Startup

Becoming a startup for mothers who are members of the recitation group is an effort to increase family income. However, if we don't have the courage to start a business, all of our wishes will just become a dream that won't come true. This service activity aims to stimulate courage and change the mindset of the women of the Raudhatul Jannah recitation group, Koto Rendah Village, Siulak District, Kerinci Jambi Regency to develop her potential from being a housewife who has daily gardening activities, becoming a startup by synergizing with her group members. Through the counseling and discussion method, how to start a startup business, determinants of startup success, the role of technology in business and opening access to online-based sales are given to them. The result achieved is the formation of a Joint Business Group (KUBE) which consists of similar business groups and collaborates in running businesses in groups.

Exploring the Direct and Indirect Effects of Emotional Leadership on Entrepreneurial Success of Start-Ups in the Hospitality Sector (II)

Exploring the Direct and Indirect Effects of Emotional Leadership on Entrepreneurial Success of Start-Ups in the Hospitality Sector (II)

Estudio sobre el liderazgo y la innovación: las claves del éxito en startups tecnológicas

This article tests different theories, as proposed by the author (Abadia 2016) and by reputed researchers such as Porter (1985), Christensen (1997) and Tellis (2006), on why some technology-related startups are successful in fast-changing environments, while well-established firms are not. To this end, the author conducted (i) four different database statistical analyses – data aggregation, segmentation, time comparison, and linear regression/correlation – on the financial statements of a large sample population of technology-related startups, in two countries, the United States of America (USA) and Spain, and (ii) nine cases studies of particularly successful technology-related startups in four countries, the USA, Spain, China and Japan. The combination of the statistical and case studies concludes that (1) visionary leadership is a necessary condition for ‘disruptive success’, (2) disruptive or, at least, revolutionary innovation is a necessary condition for disruptive success, (3) location in specialized clusters is a critical factor in determining the rate and level of success of technology-related firms. On the other hand, the study concluded that entrepreneurs and executives should seek and exploit these three competitive elements in the stages of introduction and growth. However, in the case of the maturity stage, the emphasis should be directed towards other elements that are less elitist and volatile.

Identifying Potentially Successful Start-up Social Enterprises

This paper investigates the characteristics of 347 project ideas that had the potential to develop and, in many cases, did develop into social enterprises. Insight into these characteristics may help impact investors identify potentially successful social enterprises at an early stage. At this stage, the terms of a business case are usually not figured out yet, but the plans have the potential to create social as well as financial value. The project ideas were posted on a Dutch online platform. The initiators described their social goals, the need for resources, and their plans for the execution in their own words. We compared the characteristics of the ideas that survived with the ones that didn’t. It appears that potential social entrepreneurs have a higher chance to survive if they are at first less focused on the financial issues of their business and more on the impact they want to achieve.

Artificial intelligence (AI) for tourism: an European-based study on successful AI tourism start-ups

PurposeThe travel and tourism industry (TTI) could benefit the most from artificial intelligence (AI), which could reshape this industry. This study aims to explore the characteristics of tourism AI start-ups, the AI technological domains financed by Venture Capitalists (VCs), and the phases of the supply chain where the AI domains are in high demand.Design/methodology/approachThis study developed a database of the European AI start-ups operating in the TTI from the Crunchbase database (2005–2020). The authors used start-ups as the unit of analysis as they often foster radical change. The authors complemented quantitative and qualitative methods.FindingsAI start-ups have been mainly created by male Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics graduates between 2015 and 2017. The number of founders and previous study experience in non-start-up companies was positively related to securing a higher amount of funding. European AI start-ups are concentrated in the capital town of major tourism destinations (France, UK and Spain). The AI technological domains that received more funding from VCs were Learning, Communication and Services (i.e. big data, machine learning and natural language processing), indicating a strong interest in AI solutions enabling marketing automation, segmentation and customisation. Furthermore, VC-backed AI solutions focus on the pre-trip and post-trip.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study focussing on digital entrepreneurship, specifically VC-backed AI start-ups operating in the TTI. The authors apply, for the first time, a mixed-method approach in the study of tourism entrepreneurship.

A successful start-up of an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) coupled mainstream partial nitritation-anammox (PN/A) system: A pilot-scale study on in-situ NOB elimination, AnAOB growth kinetics, and mainstream treatment performance

In this pilot-scale study, an innovative mainstream treatment process that couples the anaerobic membrane reactor (AnMBR) with a one-stage PN/A system was proposed for advancing the concept of carbon neutrality in the municipal wastewater treatment plant. This work demonstrates the start-up procedure of a pilot-scale one-stage PN/A system for mainstream treatment. The 255-day start-up of the one-stage PN/A system involved the cultivation of ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) from the activated sludge, suppression of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB), investigation of in-situ growth kinetics of anammox bacteria (AnAOB), and the 50-day operation of the pilot-scale AnMBR-PN/A process for natural mainstream treatment. It is verified in the pilot-scale system for the first time that the in-situ free ammonia (FA) and free nitrous acid (FNA) exposure could effectively eliminate the Nitrospira (the NOB genus) while retaining the Nitosonomas (the AOB genus) community in the suspended sludge. NOB community rebounding was not detected even at the mainstream conditions with low nitrogen concentrations (Influent ammonium concentration=38±6 mg-NH4+-N/L) by intermittent aeration to control the system dissolved oxygen (DO) below 0.5 mg/L. The results of the mainstream treatment showed that the average effluent total nitrogen (TN) in the coupled process was generally lower than 10 mg-N/L, which meets the discharge limits of most prefectures in Japan. The investigated results of the in-situ anammox bacteria (AnAOB) growth kinetics suggested that the promoted start-up strategy of taking advantage of the warm months with higher mainstream temperature to achieve the rapid in-situ growth of the AnAOB is applicable in the investigated regions. From the perspective of the removal performance of the TN and organic substance, the AnMBR-PN/A process has great potential as the layouts of the carbon-neutral mainstream wastewater treatment plants.

Most Crucial Factor Influencing Women Entrepreneurship Intentions in Iraq

Historically, women have little access to traditional forms of business ventures. Thus, women's unfair status compared to men, particularly in the Middle East, prevents women from becoming successful entrepreneurs than females in Western countries. This study responds to the recent call of several scholars recommended examining the obstacles facing women entrepreneurs before beginning their business. Therefore, this study aims to determine how significant is the influence of financial support factor on women entrepreneurship's intention to start their business in a conflict country like Iraq. The data were collected from 366 women entrepreneurs in Iraq using the Web-Based Questionnaire (WBQ). Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS v22) was used to test the hypothesis. The regression analysis was used to determine the most significant factors influencing Iraqi women's entrepreneurship intention. The research study's findings revealed that financial support is a significant factor motivating women entrepreneurs in Iraq to establish their business in a country with long suffered armed conflict. Given the Middle East culture and environment's unique context, the study discusses how this important finding can support women entrepreneurs in Iraq. Several recommendations are proposed from this study; first, it is necessary to develop a supporting institutional structure in conjunction with the ministry of commerce and industry to discover business possibilities that meet the women’s requirements in all sectors of the economy. Secondly, the government needs to continuously collect reliable information about the actual number of women entrepreneurship who have started a business. This type of data collecting can determine the number of successful start-up businesses and their operational challenges.

Přehled tří směrů výzkumu, jak posoudit budoucí úspěch IT start-upu v rané fázi vývoje

Přehled tří směrů výzkumu, jak posoudit budoucí úspěch IT start-upu v rané fázi vývoje

Incubation Process: A Key Innovation Lever for Successful Start-Up Businesses

Incubation Process: A Key Innovation Lever for Successful Start-Up Businesses

Business Startup Motives and Growth Expectations of MSEs: The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation

New venture creations have been considered as importance for the economic growth of any country because of its contribution to the Gross Domestic Production, diversification of local economy, employment generation, creation of innovations and value additions. Though a large number of new venture creations occur every year in Sri Lanka, recent research findings highlighted that a smaller percentage from those were able to grow and survive. Hence, number of business establishments cannot be considered as a meaningful indicator of economic growth of the country and why such a high failure rate was reported has become a crucial issue. Past studies revealed that business startup motives of the entrepreneur effect on the growth and survival of the SMEs. However, concentration on the impact of business startup motives on the success and survival of newly established ventures is lacking. Further, Entrepreneurial Orientation plays a crucial role in directing the business towards success. However, still there is a gap in the literature relating to the mediating role of the entrepreneurial orientation in the link between start-up motives and new venture success. Therefore, present study attempted to answer the research questions as; is there a significant relationship between the business startup motives and growth expectations; is there a significant difference exists in growth expectations between the necessity driven and opportunity driven entrepreneurs; and whether Entrepreneurial Orientation plays a mediating role. Independent Sample T test and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were applied to test the hypotheses based on a sample of 120 micro and small-scale entrepreneurs from Southern province of Sri Lanka. Findings revealed that there is a significant difference between the necessity driven entrepreneurs and opportunity driven entrepreneurs in terms of proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy. Results show that there is no any significant difference exist in growth expectations between the necessity driven entrepreneurs and opportunity driven entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Orientation partially mediates the relationship between business startup motives and growth expectations.
 Keywords: Business startup motives; Entrepreneurial orientation; Growth expectations; Necessity driven and Opportunity driven entrepreneurs; Micro and Small Enterprises.

Exploring the Strategic Intent and Practices of University Accelerators: A Case of Australia

University accelerators are a recent but rapidly growing phenomenon that not only enhance regional entrepreneurial ecosystems but influence the success of university startups and regional development and prosperity. The aim of this research is to explore the alignment of university strategic intent and practices with the impact and outcomes of university startup accelerators. The research design includes emergent enquiry perspectives aligned to inductive and nascent exploratory research. This is the first global algorithmic study using Leximancer techniques to examine the integration of university intent and accelerator impact using institutional theory as a foundation. Neoteric reviews provide conflicting points of view regarding university accelerators as startup launchpads or vehicles for entrepreneurial learning, and the findings suggest a disparity between university accelerators and university strategic intent, primarily a result of the incongruent interplay of substantive and symbolic management practices. The findings provide not only critical grounding and insights for researchers, practitioners, and university leaders in their quest to engage with successful nascent entrepreneurs and university startups but, also, practical implications to align the strategic intent.

Role of pre-ionization in NBI plasma start-up of Heliotron J using non-resonant microwave heating

Here, we report on role of pre-ionization using non-resonant 2.45 GHz microwave heating (P 2.45 GHz < 20 kW) in plasma start-up of neutral beam injection (NBI) for heliotron configurations in low beam power (P NB) under non-resonant heating condition. A rapid electron heating towards burn-through of the low-Z impurities was observed experimentally in the early phase of beam injection when the seed plasma density produced by the non-resonant heating was enough for the plasma start-up. Beam heating time to the burn-through increased with decreasing the seed plasma density and a critical density condition of the seed plasma for successful start-up was observed experimentally. Proper timing of the gas fuelling is critical for plasma expansion because the beam fuelling is not significant. A 0-dimensional (0D) model analysis of the NBI start-up developed in this study well reproduces the experimental results. The 0D model clarifies the physical mechanism of the NBI start-up using pre-ionization described as follows: (1) the seed plasma produces sufficient beam ions immediately after beam injection, (2) the beam ions heat up electrons that promote the ionization/dissociation of the background neutrals, (3) this process acts as a positive feedback loop resulting in further electron heating towards burn-through. The 0D model analysis shows that the critical density corresponds to the state at which the electron heating by the beam ions is equal to electron power loss due to conduction and ionization/dissociation.

Analisis Perbandingan Algoritma Decision Tree, kNN, dan Naive Bayes untuk Prediksi Kesuksesan Start-up

Start-ups have a very important role in economic growth, the existence of a start-up can open up many new jobs. However, not all start-ups that are developing can become successful start-ups. This is because start-ups have a high failure rate, data shows that 75% of start-ups fail in their development. Therefore, it is important to classify the successful and failed start-ups, so that later it can be used to see the factors that most influence start-up success, and can also predict the success of a start-up. Among the many classifications in data mining, the Decision Tree, kNN, and Naïve Bayes algorithms are the algorithms that the authors chose to classify the 923 start-up data records that were previously obtained. The test results using cross-validation and T-test show that the Decision Tree Algorithm is the most appropriate algorithm for classifying in this case study. This is evidenced by the accuracy value obtained from the Decision Tree algorithm, which is greater than other algorithms, which is 79.29%, while the kNN algorithm has an accuracy value of 66.69%, and Naive Bayes is 64.21%.

Perceived Influence of Entrepreneurial Intention on Business Success of Start-ups in Food and Beverage Sector of Rivers State

This study investigated the perceived influence of entrepreneurial intention on the business success of start-ups in the food and beverage sectors in Rivers State. Two specific objectives, two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. A descriptive survey using a quantitative approach was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of 1,167 small scale businesses across 23 local government areas of Rivers State who are registered with the State Internal Revenue. A sample of 117 small scale business owners in the food and beverage sector of Rivers State was selected using the purposive quota sampling technique. The sample consists of 60 supermarkets and 57 neighbourhood market stores in the business of distributing food and beverages. A self-designed structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The instrument was face validated by the researcher’s peers within Federal College of Education (Tech.), Omoku, Rivers State. The instrument was further subjected to reliability using Cronbach alpha to obtain a reliability index of 0.74 and 0.82 for sections A and B, with an average index of 0.78 which shows that the instrument is reliable based on data collected from 15 food and beverage start-ups supermarkets and neighbourhood stores from Bayelsa State. Data collected for the study were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean, cluster means and standard deviation to answer research questions. An independent t-test was used to test the hypotheses raised at a 0.05 level of significance. The major findings of the study revealed that supermarket and neighbourhood market stores startups in the food and beverage sector of Rivers State are of the opinion that entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial experiences help to increase sales volume and enhance customers’ retention which was the proxies of business success in this study. The results also show that there is no significant difference in the opinion of the respondents on the perceived influence of entrepreneurial intention on the business success of startups in the food and beverage sector of Rivers State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that entrepreneurs who want to succeed in the food and beverage sector of Rivers State should endeavour to render voluntary services in order to accumulate entrepreneurial experiences and develop the right entrepreneurial mindset for success.

Joy Thomas: Legacy, Foundation and the IT Society

In this article we commemorate Joy Thomas, who sadly passed away in 2020. Joy is best known for his seminal textbook ‘`Elements of Information Theory,’' co-authored with his Ph.D. advisor the late Thomas Cover \cite{CT91,CT06}. We also catalogue some of Joy's technical contributions to information theory and to its practice. Joy also made an impact to industry through several successful startups. In recognition of Joy's contribution to the exposition of Information Theory, the IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors has agreed to establish the Joy Thomas IEEE Information Theory Society Tutorial Paper Award. The Joy Thomas Foundation established to honor Joy's legacy of excellence and giving back, will sponsor this award.

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream

Challenges faced by healthcare start-ups

Healthcare start-ups across the globe are on rise and are creating new horizon. Healthcare is evolving industry with newest technology and compliances requiring young talent and entrepreneurs to establish healthcare and tech start-ups. The present study was planned with the primary aim to analyse the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in starting and operating healthcare start-ups. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among 50 healthcare start-up founders. A structured questionnaire containing 15 questions were used to understand the challenges faced by start-ups on health industry. The study results revealed a statistically significant association between the experience of the founder and opinion regarding the growth of start-ups in the healthcare field [c2=16.22; p=0.013]. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant association between financial aid for the start-up and consumer credibility and growth of the star-up [c2=20.19; p=0.01]. The present questionnaire survey-based study delineated that financial aid, data safety &amp; security for electronic data are the major challenges faced by healthcare start-ups. Hence, this study supplies a vital information source for the upcoming venture healthcare start up founder to consider highlighted challenges and its impact on the success of healthcare start-ups for their successful endeavour as health care entrepreneur.