Building Companies From Scratch: An Exploratory Study Of The Startup Studio Business Model

The startup support ecosystem has always been a dynamic environment whose actors are used to adapt to shifting market trends and startups' needs evolution. At present day, the startup support ecosystem is populated by different kinds of organisations and investors such as Venture Capital firms, Incubators and Business Angels, that support ventures in a variety of ways. Over the years, the scientific literature has devoted lots of effort to understand the above-mentioned organisations and a variety of papers investigate their characteristics, performances, and impact. However, a less known kind of organisation seems to have gained momentum in recent years: the Startup Studio. Startup Studios have been existing since 1996, with the inception of IdeaLab, yet their diffusion grew exponentially only in recent years. Despite the growing diffusion of these entities, little is known about their business model as the scientific literature is extremely limited and few practitioners’ reports are available. The objective of this master thesis is to foster the knowledge of Startup Studios by firstly mapping existing literature on the topic and building a comprehensive database of active Startup Studios worldwide. Moreover, adopting a bottom- up approach, the key traits of the Startup Studio business model will be highlighted, with particular attention given to the startups created/ co-created by such organisations. Finally, conclusions will be drawn concerning the differences and similarities with other actors of the startup support ecosystem and future research guidelines will be suggested.