A Methodological Review on Launching Small Business Projects

• Autor(a) principal: Cascalho, Francisco Bettencourt Quadros
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/147828
• topic: Technology risk; Market risk; Product-market fit; Strategic management methodologies; small businesses/Start-up; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Mecânica

A great deal of business ideas never makes it to the end due to a wide range of prob-lems that extend from the flawed conception of the idea to the failure to capture investment for their enterprise. The current most well-known methodologies are, many times, too theoretical to be applied in helping businesses in a pragmatic/realistic way on bringing an idea to the market. The aim of this study is twofold: first, to understand if small tech entrepreneurs know and apply current well-known methodologies to bring an idea to the market. Secondly, it is intended to develop a more adequate methodology to help an entrepreneur/small business owner to bring an idea to the market. Interviews to small business owners were conducted, to collect data on their previous knowledge of current methodologies, market and technology risks and difficulties faced in turning their project into a business. It was concluded that entrepreneurs use only known methodologies that are practical and essential on the context of their business, like SWOT analysis incorporated in Business Plans. The purposed methodology aims to help the entrepreneur developing an idea into a business and has the advantage of a practical approach dividing the risk into market and tech-nology risks. For sure the model considers a trigger that motivates the pursuit of a solution. After the division and mitigation, a product-market fit is conducted, and a Business model Plan is drawn. This methodology benefits entrepreneurs as it reflects the process of idea develop-ment in the context of a business while approaching the risks incurred in a comprehensive way.