This book aims to increase the success rates of startups by focusing on value proposition innovation, which is propelled by the involvement of potential consumers as well as other resources such as freelancers and strategic relationships with academia. The author shows how startups who are resource constrained can invest efforts exploring the potential market of their products. The author also explores how global markets can be beneficial for a startups success, while showing the workarounds in hard-to-access markets. The book investigates gaining knowledge shared by freelancers, customers, and academia, whose involvement can be crucial in supporting value proposition innovation activities such as ideas generation, implementation, and commercialization. Combined, the author leads readers to discover their ability to foster value proposition innovations that result into long term competitive advantage in a highly fluctuating business environment.

Varun Gupta is a Professor at GISMA University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam, Germany. He had maintained various associations with Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) in a number of capacities, most notably as a postdoctoral researcher, researcher and co-Director of masters degree in Innovation Economics, Management and Technology (Online& Presential). He was a visiting postdoctoral researcher with Software Engineering Research Group (SERG), Department of Computer Science, Lund University, Sweden. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Access (published by IEEE, and SCIE indexed with a 3.367 impact factor), PeerJ Computer Science (published by PeerJ, SCIE indexed with a 1.39 impact factor), PLOS One (SCIE indexed with a 3.752 impact factor), International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering& Technology (published by Inderscience Publishers, Scopus indexed), IEEE Software blog, and Journal of Cases on Information Technology (JCIT), and is a former editorial team member of the British Journalof Educational Technology (BJET) (published by Wiley, SCIE indexed). He earned the Bachelor of Technology (Hons.), Master of Technology (by research), and Ph.D. degrees in computer science and engineering. He holds an M.B.A. (general) and a Máster en Dirección Internacional de Empresas as well. He is serving as a Reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence. He was awarded with the Best Editor Award by Inderscience Publishers for his contributions to the International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering& Technology (Scopus Indexed) as Associate Editor. His area of interest is evidence based software engineering and innovation management.

Introduction.- Research background and motivation.- Startup challenges and failure rates.- Value Proposition Innovation as startup Success Factor.- Fostering Value Proposition Innovation in Startups driven by Open Innovation.- Research Methodology.- Systematic Mapping studies.- Research Methods in Individual Articles.- Systematic Mapping studies.- Unity and Coherence between individual research study design.- Relationship between research objectives, research questions, and relevant research publications.- Results, Discussion and Contribution.- Unity and Coherence between individual research study outcomes.- Conclusion.