B2B growth and sales · Empirical study combining secondary firm data and startup survey data
Should B2B Start-ups Invest in Marketing?
Mintz, O., & Lilien, G. L. (2024). Industrial Marketing Management, 117, 220–237.
Plain-English take
Systematic marketing investment was associated with higher valuation for early-stage B2B startups, while effects varied by customer type and development stage. For your marketing: This is one of the few studies directly about B2B startups.
How much weight to give this
2.5/5 Limited or context-dependent evidence
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.
This design is useful for description or theory-building, but does not isolate a causal effect.
Sample reported (377); consider setting and recruitment as well as size.
No randomized control group is reported for this design.
This profile could be checked against an abstract or metadata, not the full paper.
Double-blind? Not applicable in the same way as a participant-treatment experiment.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How does systematic marketing relate to startup valuation across B2B versus B2C firms and early versus later development stages?
Design
Empirical analysis combining secondary firm data with a separate survey validation study, informed by managerial interviews and signaling theory.
Sample and setting
Main study of 202 startups with firm, financial, and industry data; validation study of 377 startups.
Reported result
What the study found
Systematic marketing investment was associated with higher valuation for early-stage B2B startups, while effects varied by customer type and development stage. The authors report that more than half of early-stage B2B startups in their data did not invest in systematic marketing.
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 accessible abstract does not state limitations. Firm valuation is not the same as near-term acquisition, and the findings are conditional on the included startups and modeling approach.
Possible founder application
One of the few studies directly about B2B startups. It challenges the assumption that early startups should avoid systematic marketing, but does not prescribe a channel or spending amount.
Evidence access
Publisher abstract; full text may require access
ScienceDirect publisher abstract retrieved with Firecrawl; sample sizes and moderator pattern were visible on the page.
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.