The entrepreneurial journey of a global start-up: the case of the open innovation platform GrabCAD

Abstract

Understanding the entrepreneurial journey has become essential for both start-up entrepreneurs and policymakers within the ecosystem of technology start-ups, functioning as engines of growth in new economies and exports. Often, they are born global (BG) high technology small firms (HTSFs). The entrepreneurial journey, often used as a metaphor in the literature on entrepreneurship, has been subject to attempts to define it theoretically as a research concept, even though there are practically no empirical approaches. This paper aims to overcome the gap in disclosing the entrepreneurial journey and seeks to shape the features of a hi-tech start-up reaching global open innovation (OI) platform, based on the example of GrabCAD. This entails, based on this particular case study of finding proof of theoretical journey patterns, as well as analysing aspects that have not yet been addressed. An analysis of the GrabCAD case demonstrates the importance of the combination of different actors and features shaping the entrepreneurial journey.