Finally, 3 interesting scientific articles that provide additional information about the topic would be :

1) Sonia Ben Slimane (2021), Absorption – Technological Absorptive Capacity and Innovation: The Primacy of Knowledge, Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 2, 43-49.
2) Santos A. C. O., da Silva C. E. S., Braga R. A. D. S., Corrêa J. E., & de Almeida F. A. (2019), Customer value in lean product development: Conceptual m odel for incremental innovations, Systems Engineering, 23(3), 281-293.
3) Angelo Bonomi (2021), Theoretical Model of Technology for Innovation, Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1, 363-369.

First, the manager must define the customers, technology, identity and competitor of the startup in order to guide future decisions and goals. For customers is necessary to dentify who are the people involved and understand their needs and have in consideration that the target customer is not necessarily the first customer. (i.e. start with epileptic people and then expand to all the population). For technology is necessary to identify which equipment I need to satisfy those needs. For identity is necessary to identify for what the startup will stand (values and mission), what behavior expect (collaborate or compete? Defend or attack?), and capabilities it will develop (skills). And for competitors is necessary to identify where and against who inside the value chain I will compete (different is compete against the retailer-production rather providers-logistic).

Secondly, choose the best strategy. Once the basis is defined, the manager should choose which strategy fits better with the company. Would it be better to compete or to collaborate? Would it be better to “Build a moat” or “storm a hill”? If these strategies are combined, we have the IP strategy that is an idea factory, concentrated on the incumbent and not in the final customers. The architectural strategy that is designing the entire value chain and control the bottleneck, so create a platform, not a product. The Value Chain strategy that is focused on differentiation and prefer competence rather than strong competition. Finally, the Disruption strategy that controls the market but not the idea, so get ahead and keep ahead focusing on growth.

In order to choose the manager should give an option or hypothesis to every strategy considering the feasibility, lack of alignment capabilities-team and the capital. This means, that for every strategy is necessary to identify the four keys.

It is also important for the manager to be open to adapt the strategies because, in the end, the manager has a big picture of the environment and the possible scenarios that will face. It is important to know that every scenario has risks and therefore most information the manager has, better decisions can make. However, choose one strategy could create new opportunities to innovate or keep developing the business, so the manager must be open to adapt, modified, add or eliminate strategies.

Two big limits have been identified regarding the key insights and the four strategies.
The first one is the uncertainty. The main subject covered here is strategy and it stays theoretical. We never know how it will be in the future and we cannot predict 100% behavior of other incumbents (such as competitors but also consumers, and workers).
We cannot predict trends or even what kind of innovation will appear. These theories are here to help and identify the best approach but it’s not an exact science. It is not because you choose the best strategy that fits with your company that it will necessarily work.
Finally, it does not eliminate or reduce the uncertainty in launching a start-up.

The second limit that has been identified is the infeasibility. Paths are not all plausible.
Sometimes, before going deep into details you can already dismiss some alternatives. This can be the result of multiple reasons: lack of information about the market,
the lack of alignment with capabilities of the team and the lack of capital, with for example the architectural Strategy (that requires a lot of resources).

Further references :

(Book) Mosey, S., Noke, H. and Kirkham, P. (2017). “Building an entrepreneurial organization”. Florence: Taylor and Francis, 2017, Chapter 2.

(Article) Aithal, P. S. (2016). “The concept of Ideal Strategy & its realization using White Ocean Mixed Strategy”. International Journal of Management Sciences and Business Research (IJMSBR), DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.161108.

(Video) Reeves, M. (2014, October). “Martin Reeves: Your Strategy Needs a Strategy”. [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_reeves_your_strategy_needs_a_strategy#t-109808

Implications:
The study led in this article analyses the impact of the four dimensions (4 business model design themes) that can be implemented in the business model (complementarities, efficiency, lock-in and novelty) on the firm’s performances and creation of value. The complementarities refer to synergies between product/service offerings in the business model. The minimization of transaction costs among all stakeholder groups orchestrates efficiency-based business models. Lock-in builds on the imposition of switching costs on different participants in the business model. And finally, novelty describes new ways of organizing transaction flows between stakeholders.
However, among these four themes orchestrating the business model designs, only two have a significant positive impact on the financial performance of the firm and create market value: the novelty and the efficiency. That is why novelty and efficiency should be present in the business model design, not necessarily together in the same business model, but at least one of them. Indeed, innovation (so novelty) in business models is a driver for success if it is supported with another value driver, here efficiency. Novelty is very powerful and could be the antecedent that will allow to find new ways to implement the other dimensions in the business model, such as efficiency, in order to increase the performances. As we can see, novelty and so innovation is a crucial dimension and being the first mover helps to strengthen your position and build a fence by regrouping a good customer base to fight competition when it will arrive. Therefore, by using efficiency alone, a firm could have some difficulties to protect its market share against the competition.
However, being the first mover and so ensure novelty in your business process is not always possible. But it is still feasible to create and capture value without novelty. Even if it is real advantage, novelty is not necessary to create value. When novelty is no longer possible, the solution is to use the three remaining dimensions together: efficiency, complementarities and lock-in, and implement them in the business model. This configuration is easier to defend in the long term because the company doesn’t have to be always more innovative than its competitors. The efficiency, complementarities and lock-in of the firm don’t decrease after improvements of the competitors whereas being the only one to provide a product and protect this position of innovator is difficult and require a lot of efforts. The complex configuration of this business model in which there is a high interrelation of these three dimensions that make each of them unreplaceable, allows the creation and capture of value, even if the business model loses its novelty when the competitors arrive.
Finally, the study shows that the lock-in dimension relies on the imposition of switching costs on stakeholders. It is therefore difficult for the customers and partners to switch to competitors because none of the rivals can offer the same combination of product and services and this particular business model. The switching costs are too important to change from the firm to its competitors. If the customers perceive this dimension, it could have a negative effect. This dimension is therefore the only one that doesn’t necessarily benefit to the customers, but it remains important because it helps to keep them. The firm should thus combine this dimension of lock-in with other dimensions in order to make it a significant value driver. For instance, the lock-in theme is more likely to have a positive impact if it is coupled with the novelty dimension and so if the firm is introducing an entirely new business model that deliver a unique value proposition to its customers.

Limitations:
The study concerns only four factors and their interactions, without considering any else. The set of firms is de-contextualised from any references from the original contexts. For example, what about the industries? The characteristics of companies are directly connected to their industries, so the four factors must be considered in relationship with firms. Also, firms are different from each other, and their conditions play a role in the success or failure of a business. This approach does not take them into account.
It admits that data have not found a correlation between the four factors and the outcomes. However, it does not explain why there is not. The presence of all four factors does not give the highest outcome, and the complete absence does not give the lowest. So, the study would have to do to analyse this lack because the entire approach is based on the four factors classification.
The usage of a configuration approach is useful to collect data, but it cannot explain the success or failure of a business. It can be useful to detect trends, but it does not give answers. This kind of approach does not consider the peculiarities of each company: a business success is often caused by a unique combination of factors.

Further references:
-Fiss, P. C., Marx, A., & Cambré, B. (2013). Chapter 1 configurational theory and methods in organizational research: Introduction. In Configurational theory and methods in organizational research (pp. 1-22). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
-Kung, L., Kung, H. J., Jones-Farmer, A., & Wang, Y. (2015). Managing big data for firm performance: a configurational approach.

Further references:
– (Book) Martin, R., & Martin, R. L. (2009). The design of business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Harvard Business Press.

– (Article) Lindberg, T., Köppen, E., Rauth, I., & Meinel, C. (2012). On the perception, adoption and implementation of design thinking in the IT industry. In Design thinking research (pp. 229-240). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

– (Article) Toscani, P. (2019). Cognitive biases: Between necessity and danger. Futuribles, (1), 73-80.

There are several types of sources of competitive advantage. Some companies gain a competitive advantage through economies of scale, when you produce a lot and are able to reduce your costs. Other companies find their competitive advantage through economies of scale, when you manufacture a large number of different products, which creates synergies between products. And the other two sources are vertical integration, when you buy your customers or suppliers and the other is core competence, when you can manage tacit knowledge.

The other important point to understand is the variation of competitive advantage over time.
Companies tend to imitate the strategies of the leading companies in term of competitive advantage. They think that if it works for a company, it will work for everybody. However, we can see that over the time opposite factors could be source of competitive advantage. In fact, what constitute advantages for today’s most successful companies, confer those benefices only because of particular factors under particular conditions in a particular time. So, we can’t reproduce the strategies of other companies. By understanding the circumstances that cause the competitive advantage, companies could adapt their sources and predict new origins which could emerge in the future.

The article also explains how to set up different mechanisms to create a competitive advantage.

The economy of scale exists when there are high fixed costs and low variable cost in the core business. In this case, large companies can amortize the fixed costs over big volumes, taking the lead over its competitors.
But Many fixed costs are not caused by nature but are due to specific technological and managerial solutions to problems. Thanks to innovation, we are now able to flatten scale economies by reducing the production cost.

Each product is composed of a value-added chain of activities; if the company wants to outsource its weaknesses, it must first find them in the value-added chain of activities. the advantage of outsourcing to a specialized company is that it can often give a better quality to the product, which is a source of competitive advantage, and at the same time it will give more time to the outsourcing company to focus on its strengths and growth. Unfortunately it is not always possible to have all the information in order to determine the weakness of the value-added chain of activities. For example, if the product is new or in the test phase

Economies of scope are cost advantages that result when firms provide a variety of products rather than specializing in the production of a single product or service. The average costs are reduced by introducing another product that can share the existing infrastructure, thus reducing cost per product. But if you have a too large range of products, there is a risk of losing side of your goal. You need a link between your products so that it become an advantage. Otherwise it will be a disadvantage because you customers will lose themselves in your brand.
Further reference :

• SALAVOU, H. (2015), “Competitive strategies and their shift to the future”, European Business Review, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 80-99.

• Brem, A., Maier, M. and Wimschneider, C. (2016), “Competitive advantage through innovation: the case of Nespresso”, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 133-148.

The first strategy is the “Intellectual Property Strategy”. It lies in the alignment of a start-up innovation with incumbent’s occupation. In this collaboration, the entrepreneur will focus on the idea generation and control to create value to the incumbent’s customer and keep bargaining power.
In contrast to this, the “Disrupting strategy” centers its attention on the commercialization of the innovation and the quick market share growth that will follow. So, the established value chain is completely redesigned and the entrepreneur has no fear to compete against incumbents, even if start-up still have the incentive to develop themselves as quick as possible or to choose a niche segment before the already established companies notice it in order to avoid conflict.
The third strategy is the “Value Chain Strategy” focusing on the existing value chain instead of trying to modify it. It means that companies will try to build a profitable partnership with established ventures of the value chain. In order to do so, they will stay focus on only one layer of the chain so that they are able to create value by developing the greatest expertise and capabilities. Consequently, it will allow all the companies of the chain to benefit from enhanced differentiation or cost advantage.
The last one is the “Architectural Strategy”: by reorganizing an entire value chain and supervising its key bottlenecks, entrepreneurs will bring innovation to a mass market and will gather data on customers.

Nevertheless, those different strategic routes face some limitations. First of all, despite the access to great tools such as the entrepreneurial strategy compass, the uncertainty linked to the creation of a start-up is definitely still present. Actually, the success of a start-up does not lie only in the fact that it chooses the coherent framework but more that it took into account all its environmental factors in order to implement it. One of those factors is time. Timing is crucial and an entrepreneur has to find the right balance between launching its innovation too soon or too late. Indeed, start-ups that spend too much time focusing on strategy can expect some delay as the market entry will be postponed and might therefore lose an opportunity while precipitating into the entrance of the market might be risky. For example, if the chosen route was not the most profitable one or if important aspects have been overlooked. Concerning the architectural strategy, controlling the value chain and taking part in competition is a very risky choice that could quickly lead to failure. In fact, such a strategy could be chosen only by high public profiles that benefit from great funding.

To go even further, the TedxTalk “The single biggest reason why startups succeed” by Bill Gross presents the different factors that could lead a startup to success. Nevertheless, whatever strategy it decides to adopt, if it did not choose the right timing to enter the market, it will certainly end up in a failure.

Also, the book “The Lean Startup” from Eric Ries brings an interesting additional view on the matter of startups willing to launch an innovation. However, the author seems to think that defining a strategy is important but should not delay the commercialization too much and proposes an alternative approach with its Minimum Viable Product.