A Proposed Textual Model for i-Star

Software start-ups have embedded themselves in the economic zeitgeist as drivers of innovation and growth. ‘Unicorns’, such as Facebook, Uber, Pinterest, Dropbox, and Palantir, have ably demonstrated the market disrupting and industry transforming potential of upstarts that ‘punch above their weight class’. These successful businesses began as start-ups and matured into enterprises with multi-billion dollar valuations even though most start-ups fail or are abandoned within a few years of founding. A notable reason for the failure or abandonment of many start-ups is erroneous logic and faulty assumptions underpinning their products, business models, and engines of growth. The lean start-up approach encourages decision makers to test their fundamental hypotheses and effect strategic pivots to identify new and superior fundamental hypotheses. This paper outlines exploratory research into the modeling of strategic pivoting using i*. It discusses the key concepts that are relevant for developing a framework for analyzing strategic pivoting in a structured and systematic manner using i*. Such a framework can support decision-makers in start-ups to test the fundamental hypotheses underlying their products, business models, and engines of growth.