Development of a Model of Factors Affecting Startup Success Using Directed Content Analysis
Keywords:
Startup success, Meta-synthesis, Case study, Qualitative content analysis, Conceptual modelAbstract
Startup success is a multidimensional phenomenon, and explaining it solely through a single factor such as an innovative idea, venture financing, or market growth is insufficient. This study aims to identify the factors affecting startup success and to develop its conceptual model based on case-based evidence. The research is applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of approach. In the first stage, relevant studies on startup success were reviewed using Sandelowski and Barroso’s seven-step meta-synthesis method, and the main factors were extracted. Then, to develop the model, three startups with different conditions, including a successful and developing startup, a growing startup, and an unsuccessful and discontinued startup, were examined as case studies. The meta-synthesis findings indicated that the factors affecting startup success can be classified into five main categories: leadership and team, product or service, market and customer, business model and finance, and external environment. The case study results showed that sustainable startup success depends not only on the existence of these factors but also on their alignment and executability. Accordingly, components such as strategic focus, simplicity of value proposition, specialized trust-building, continuous customer support, revenue model executability, stakeholder alignment, and ecosystem leverage were added to the initial model. The developed model can be used to assess startups’ growth status, sustainability, and investment readiness.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Fatemeh Aminsaffar (Author); Gholamreza Tavakoli; Abolfazl Bagheri , Manoochehr Manteghi (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
