Hypotheses Elicitation in Early-Stage Software Startups Based on Cognitive Mapping

Software startups develop innovative products for which there are typically no customers to refer to elicit requirements. Often, these companies develop a set of features without a better understanding of customer needs. An experiment-based approach to validate hypotheses about the customer and market could increase their chance of success or, at least, accelerate their realization of the product worthlessness. The first step of an experiment-based approach is to elicit hypotheses to guide experiments. Software startups base their products on business assumptions, but there is a lack of understanding of how these assumptions are formed and how teams could elicit hypotheses systematically. To fill this gap, we performed an empirical study consisted of two steps. First, we explored based on which assumptions startups define their products using a multiple case study. The results indicate that these companies developed their products based on founders’ assumptions derived from their previous experience. Second, we investigated cognitive mapping as a tool to elicit hypotheses systematically with two software startups. The results indicate that this approach can serve as the basis of a method to elicit hypotheses in early-stage software startups.