Acceleration of go-to-market for technology-based start-ups

Abstract

The aim of the thesis was research of existing acceleration tools and methods, based on technological innovations and advanced processes, that can help young technology-based companies to shorten the time between the birth of an innovative idea and it`s commercialization. In addition, considerable part of the study was devoted to evaluation of business incubators` and accelerators` programs and their services, to examine their contribution to the start-ups performance. The results, obtained from 66 Finnish start-ups in ICT sector, show that firms quite intensively use strategic partnerships, participation in tradeshows/conferences and digital marketing (umbrella term, which also include social media and word-of-mouth marketing) for acceleration of their go-to-market. However, there is no direct evidence of the impact of these tools and methods, except participation in conferences, on the start-ups’ performance. Furthermore, study found positive impact of accelerators’ programs on firms’ performance.