Challenges and approaches to customer development in co-located high-tech start-ups

The paper presents findings of a study of entrepreneurial start-up organisations in the ICT sector. The start-up organisations were co-located in a new business incubator managed by a university in the north-west of England. The study was aimed at understanding the factors and approaches that impacted the ability of the start-ups to manage customer development and, consequently, generate revenue. A longitudinal case study methodology was adopted and the case study was split into five mini-studies. Semi-structured interviews carried out at six-month intervals were used to generate qualitative data. The study indicated that the start-ups faced capacity constraint and skills issues that negatively impacted customer development. In addition, there was no consensus on the impact of co-location on customer development. However, there was an indication that incubator managers need to provide more strategic support for start-ups with respect to customer development.