Software Development in Startup Companies: The Greenfield Startup Model

Abstract

PostprintThis is the accepted version of a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination.Citation for the original published paper (version of record):Giardino, C., Paternoster, N., Unterkalmsteiner, M., Gorschek, T., Abrahamsson, P. The Greenfield Startup Model Carmine Giardino, Nicolò Paternoster, Michael Unterkalmsteiner, Member, IEEE, Tony Gorschek, Member, IEEE, and Pekka Abrahamsson, Member, IEEE Abstract-Software startups are newly created companies with no operating history and oriented towards producing cutting-edge products. However, despite the increasing importance of startups in the economy, few scientific studies attempt to address software engineering issues, especially for early-stage startups. If anything, startups need engineering practices of the same level or better than those of larger companies, as their time and resources are more scarce, and one failed project can put them out of business. In this study we aim to improve understanding of the software development strategies employed by startups. We performed this stateof-practice investigation using a grounded theory approach. We packaged the results in the Greenfield Startup Model (GSM), which explains the priority of startups to release the product as quickly as possible. This strategy allows startups to verify product and market fit, and to adjust the product trajectory according to early collected user feedback. The need to shorten time-to-market, by speeding up the development through low-precision engineering activities, is counterbalanced by the need to restructure the product before targeting further growth. The resulting implications of the GSM outline challenges and gaps, pointing out opportunities for future research to develop and validate engineering practices in the startup context.

Are Software Startups Applying Agile Practices? The State of the Practice from a Large Survey

“…However, since software startups are constantly under the huge pressure of time-to-market and need to move really fast, product quality may be treated with a low priority and technical debt is accumulated to gain the speed to market [7]. As a result, certain agile practices that ensure the quality of software, such as refactoring and test-driven development, may not be considered viable practices for software startups, especially at the early stages [8].…”

“…As a result, certain agile practices that ensure the quality of software, such as refactoring and test-driven development, may not be considered viable practices for software startups, especially at the early stages [8]. But the accumulated technical debt, if not paid back in time, will eventually slow down the development speed [7], which means software startups cannot afford to ignore quality and related engineering practices as they progress through the stages of development.…”

Towards Understanding Startup Product Development as Effectual Entrepreneurial Behaviors

“…Secondly, this is among the first attempt to bring a theoretical framework from entrepreneurship literature in Software Engineering. This is encouraging due to the current limited theoretical contribution to software startups research [13,14].…”

Implementation of DevOps Architecture in the project development and deployment with help of tools

“…DevOps is the mechanism which bridges the gap between developer-operations and not only limited to developer-operations but also for the continuous development, continuous testing and continuous integration [5]. DevOps main goal is to deliver the software rapidly with continuous development, continuous integration, continuous feedback and communication with development and operations team [1]. DevOps is the extension of agile principles in software delivery pipeline.…”