Start-ups could save $4.3 billion a year by improving software engineering practices and reducing the failure rate by just 1%. The document discusses understanding the engineering context of start-ups, identifying good practices and relevant context, and creating a roadmap for start-ups to implement practices like market-driven requirements engineering, technical debt management, and lean/agile practices to improve in areas that could reduce failure rates.

1. Towards improving
Software-intensive product engineering in start-ups
If improved SE practices could reduce the start-up failure rate just by 1% that
would save at least $ 4.3 billion of investment capital a year [1].
Understand the
engineering context
in start-ups and
learn what
engineering
practices start-ups
use
Identify “good”
engineering
practices along with
relevant context
information
Create a roadmap of good
engineering practices for start-ups
Market-driven
requirements
engineering
Technical debt
management
Lean & agile
practices
Areas with the most potential for improvement
(specify under what circumstances
a practice is “good”)
eriks.klotins@bth.se
startupcontextmap.org
Eriks Klotins
1. Start-up ecosystem report EU and US, 2015, available at http://startup-ecosystem.compass.co/ser2015/