Katharina Buttenberg

Abstract: Start-up firms are facing specific challenges in their birth phase. These firms are still majorly dependent on their environment. Market information is still little, products or services are not fully developed and these young firms often only have little resources available for further development. Based on this uncertainty, it is not easy for young firms to develop measures to assess the performance of their business. Adopting a case study methodology through in-depth interviews with founders and CEOs, 14 young firms in Germany and the USA were analyzed. The findings in this paper are qualitative and need to be quantified in a next step. The study investigates the challenges in measuring business performance in young firms and focuses on financial as well as product-market-performance indicators that are specific to start-up firms in order to support their strategic decision-making. The proposed framework proposes measures to assess business performance relevant for founders and CEOs of young firms as well as potential business-investors.

Key words: young firm; start-up; management; entrepreneurship; founder; business performance