Buyer behavior · Qualitative case study with semi-structured interviews

How high-tech start-ups learn to cross the market chasm?

Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management, and Innovation · 2022

Pouria Goldasteh, Morteza Akbari, Afsaneh Bagheri, Ali Mobini

Summary

Start-ups used customers, benchmarking, prior experience, competitors, consultants, internal ideas and educational content; teams and active experimentation were dominant learning mechanisms.

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Instrument customer discovery and experimentation as explicit organizational learning, while benchmarking competitors and recruiting complementary team skills.

Reported result

What the study found

Start-ups used customers, benchmarking, prior experience, competitors, consultants, internal ideas and educational content; teams and active experimentation were dominant learning mechanisms.

Research question

What the authors investigated

How does the study’s stated design explain its reported outcome in this setting?

Design

Qualitative case study with semi-structured interviews

Sample and setting

23 entrepreneurs/co-founders of Tehran IT start-ups; 11 had crossed the chasm

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

Single-city qualitative sample; retrospective founder reports.

Research sources

abstract_only

Study strength

3.5/5 Abstract-level evidence is useful for framing questions; verify full methods before transfer.

How this was assessed

The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.

Design transparency · 2/2

Based on the reported study design in the retrieved source.

Sample and setting · 1/1

The sample context is stated; a numerical count is preserved only when reported.

Outcome clarity · 1/1

The finding is summarized from publisher or article metadata.

Access for checking · 0.5/1

Only abstract or bibliographic access was confirmed.

Double-blind? The retrieved publisher record does not establish whether participants or outcome assessors were blinded.

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