Methodological Implications

The common usage of lean startup is in business development and startup projects.

Adaptation to the academic research has required different emphasis in some parts in relation to the business environment. The key findings on utilizing lean startup in an academic research are collected in the Table 10. They are presented with a comparison to the utilization of lean startup in the business environment.

Table 10. Lean startup usage in business environment and academic research

Business environment Academic research Objectives profitable business research problem

Requirements business-related academic

Principles same: e.g. customer-centric, validated learning Methodology Iterative, feed-back-loop, learning emphasis

Speed fast slower

Resources possibly higher possibly lower

Level of

Documentation lower high

Experiments Real experiments based on hypotheses & 'get out of the building'

Used tools varying

Analysis fast, more superficial more profound Other inputs Ideas & innovations Theoretic

The objectives for utilizing lean startup in business environment and academic research can differ from each other. For business the objective is to create a profitable and sustainable business, whereas in academic research the research problem determines the objectives. The business environment and academic research objectives can however be close to each other, especially if a case company is involved in the academic research. In this research the process was connected with the case company, so the objectives were a combination of both the business environment and academic research objective. The requirements in business environment can also be different to those to an academic research. This is something to acknowledge when comparing the two environments and usage of lean startup.

The principles and methodology of lean startup should remain the same in any environment, even though the academic research and business environment might emphasize different things. The methods in lean startup should always follow the build-measure-learn feedback loop (Ries 2011). Lean startup assumes that the problem setting does not know who the customer is, so this should not be a problem for academic research, in case where it would not have a specific customer. The emphasis should always be on the target audience. In this study the lean startup principles were strictly followed.

Lean startup emphasizes the minimum usage of resources and especially time (Ries 2011;

Blank 2013). However, the scientific requirements and available resources do not always support this what it comes to academic research. Such parts of the development process, as running the workshops and experiments, expect other people to be involved with the development process. The dedication of the case company, and the resource possibilities can vary in academic researches. Although lean startup is considered to be a fast method, it can require a lot of resources and dedication from other interest parties as well.

In order to produce scientifically reliable results all the factors effected on the results should be documented critically (Saaranen-Kauppinen & Puusniekka 2006). In this project all of the steps are documented in detail, which increases the time and resources spent on the lean startup process. In business environment the documentation level can also be high, but it does not necessarily require the same resources, depth, or accuracy as an academic research.

Lean startup requires real life experiments that base on the hypotheses and real customer feedback (Ries 2011). This can set some limitations for doing academic research with the methodology. In this research the workshop, meetings, and lot of the guidelines were done in collaboration between the case company representors and the researcher. The execution of the experiment was made by the case company, and some customer data for the interviews was received from them. The execution of lean startup therefore got a lot of impact from the case company. Utilizing lean startup requires a certain amount of commitment to the methodologies from the target company. In an academic study lean startup could have been harder to execute if the case company would not be familiar with the methodology or practices.

The tools used in lean startup vary between different companies, so there is not a directly recognized difference between the utilization of them in the two different environments.

This study used the tools that were already familiar in the case company, and followed their ways of working.

Some parts in this research were analyzed in more throughout level than the lean startup methodology would actually require. Some areas could not be adopted as fast and resource-efficiently in a way that they would also fulfil the academic needs. For example consumer interviews and the analysis made based on them is not something that the lean startup methodology would acquire. On the other hand the “get out of the building”

approach did not get the same emphasis than in the business adaptation of lean startup. In business environment the method produces more experiments and validated results faster than in this study. During the time used in the academic research, in business environment a lot more consumers could have been interviewed without the academic approach and its requirements. This had its impact on the focus of the resources during the work.

As a conclusion however utilizing lean startup in academic research can be extremely beneficial and give new perspectives to different areas of development. There are however a lot of industries and areas of development that lean startup likely could not be used. Lean startup emphasizes the customer approach instead of technical features, and it can work well for practically any project with similar approach. The evaluation of the usage of lean startup in an academic research is collected in the Table 11.

Table 11. Evaluation of using lean startup in an academic research

This framework is created based on the factors acknowledged by the usage of lean startup in this study. The first to sections present the positive and negative factors on utilizing lean startup in an academic service development project. In the middle it points out the important factors that have to be evaluated or adjusted when considering the usage of lean startup. The lower sections gather when to use, and when not to use lean startup methodology in an academic research.

Academically lean startup offers a very different perspective, it encourages to fail fast and learn from it. Most of the theoretical frameworks can be quite the opposite of this.

Lean startup could work extremely well in academic research, as resource allocation, doing the right things, and serving the customer, are also extremely important aspects. It can be understood that science is always accurate and in that sense it does not fail.

However in some areas of development, failing fast and learning from it could leave towards the right direction a lot faster, the same way as in business development.