How do startups manage external resources in innovation ecosystems? A resource perspective of startups’ lifecycle

Innovation requires a multitude of resources that are hard to find within a single firm, especially for startups that are resource-constrained young ventures. To overcome such liabilities throughout their lifecycle, startups rely on actors in the innovation ecosystem to benefit from their resources. Therefore, we adopt a resource management perspective to analyze how startups structure, bundle, and leverage innovation ecosystem's actors’ resources throughout startups’ creation, development, and market phases. To that end, we study ten cases of manufacturing startups and interview innovation ecosystem actors. Our findings show that during creation, interaction with non-market oriented actors are predominant, and startups focus on bundling innovation and social resources. While in the development phase, interactions involve a balanced integration of market and non-market oriented actors, and startups focus on bundling innovation, social, and organizational resources. Finally, interactions with market-oriented actors are predominant in the market phase, and startups still bundle innovation and social resources, yet of a different nature. Our findings shed light on how startups’ changing needs throughout their lifecycle affect the interactions in startups’ innovation ecosystem. Based on the findings, we discuss how innovation ecosystems help startups develop an ambidextrous strategy of exploration and exploitation and which capabilities startups develop in each lifecycle phase.