Customer acquisition and trust · Peer-reviewed empirical study or research synthesis
Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption
Konya-Baumbach, E., Schuhmacher, M. C., Kuester, S., & Kuharev, V. (2019). Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption. International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Plain-English take
Customer ratings, benefit communication, and revenue model were effective design signals for increasing adoption of digital innovations by improving initial trust. Revenue model also affected privacy concerns, which mediated its relationship with initial trust; the publisher discussion reports that positive-rating quantity itself did not significantly affect initial trust/adoption in one test. Founder-use interpretation: Use this as a question to test in your own product context, not as a universal benchmark. The article’s discussion notes that negative ratings were not tested, alternative revenue models such as freemium/subscription/advertising remain for future work, and additional mediators/moderators may exist. Simulated digital-innovation presentations and mostly European samples limit direct evidence about long-run real-product usage.
How much weight to give this
3.5/5 Relevant empirical or synthesis evidence with transfer limits
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.
Based on the reported design.
Context and reporting are stated; representativeness is bounded.
Comparison detail varies by publisher access.
Publisher record directly retrieved; full methods may not be accessible.
Double-blind? Not established in this retrieval.
Research question
What the authors investigated
Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption?
Design
Five experiments, including randomized online between-subjects experiments and a quasi-field experiment with a start-up; mediation analyses test initial trust as the mechanism between business-model signals and adoption intentions.
Sample and setting
Digital-innovation launch scenarios including an augmented-reality city-guide app, a smart-insurance app, and an interior-design planner; publisher methods report final samples of 174, 90, 91, 173, and 200 across the experiments, using European online-panel participants and business-school students.
Reported result
What the study found
Customer ratings, benefit communication, and revenue model were effective design signals for increasing adoption of digital innovations by improving initial trust. Revenue model also affected privacy concerns, which mediated its relationship with initial trust; the publisher discussion reports that positive-rating quantity itself did not significantly affect initial trust/adoption in one test.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The article’s discussion notes that negative ratings were not tested, alternative revenue models such as freemium/subscription/advertising remain for future work, and additional mediators/moderators may exist. Simulated digital-innovation presentations and mostly European samples limit direct evidence about long-run real-product usage.
Possible founder application
Use this as a question to test in your own product context, not as a universal benchmark. The article’s discussion notes that negative ratings were not tested, alternative revenue models such as freemium/subscription/advertising remain for future work, and additional mediators/moderators may exist. Simulated digital-innovation presentations and mostly European samples limit direct evidence about long-run real-product usage.
Evidence access
Publisher article or abstract page directly retrieved with Firecrawl; full methods access varies.
Publisher record directly retrieved with Firecrawl (reference 01a122ca-8d7a-755c-92a3-8120f79f73c2); summary is a careful paraphrase of the accessible record.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.