Capability Support for Entrepreneurial Ventures

Abstract

The chapter presents the use of capability design for start-ups and entrepreneurial ventures. Newly started companies typically need to sharpen their business idea. The use of capability thinking in some pilot cases turned out to be a useful and beneficial approach. As a result, we distilled Capability-Driven Development and tuned it for start-up design, resulting in the LightCDD method. The method has evolved as we have applied it and learned from that experience. The chapter presents an updated version of the method, illustrating its results. It also discusses its perceived benefits and drawbacks. All in all, the results so far have shown that LightCDD helps in reducing the ambiguity of business plans and in identifying what contextual factors could affect the value proposition or the performance of the start-up.