Creating Customers: A Go-to-market Approach for Software Startups

Abstract

Software startups fail more than 90% of the time, and it is frequently due to self-destruction instead of competition. Most startups cannot find a product-market fit and fail to recognise when a pivot is required. This research presents a go-to-market approach for software startups, derived through meta-modelling four integrative startup strategies. We evaluated the go-to-market approach with twelve innovative software startups are active in the Dutch market, three to ten years old, and operating in the final phase of the go-to-market approach. The go-to-market approach presents the crucial activities that are needed to find problem-solution fit and product-market fit. Explicitly formalising methods from strategies defined in literature and evaluating them via domain expert interviews in a multiple-case study, provides substantial scientific contributions. Furthermore, if every software startup would apply a predefined, structured approach, the problem-solution fit is found easier and earlier, which facilitates the product-market fit.