Abstract
Through case study and in-depth interviews, this research investigated the devel-opment process of an IoT startup company—Yeelight Technologies—to gain insights about resources sharing and co-creation between an IoT smart hardware startup and the Xiaomi business ecosystem. The research findings show that during the life cycle of a start-up venture, certain cooperative strategies were employed to create partnerships to lower risks, to provide expertise transfer in a complementary fash-ion, and to create value while mitigating competition in the vulnerable start-up phase. The initial support in design expertise from Xiaomi played a vital and indis-pensable role for Yeelight in strengthen its design expertise, enabling the latter transition phase where Yeelight developed its own design strategy to compete with globally well-known lighting brands. The case study provides a reference about how an IoT smart hardware startup cooperates with a major company with a strong business ecosystem.
Keywords
start-up, hardware, design strategy, business ecosystem
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.383
Citation
Song, J., Hung, W., and Chen, L. (2022) Design innovation strategy for an IoT startup in Xiaomi business ecosystem: A case study of Yeelight technology, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.383
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Design innovation strategy for an IoT startup in Xiaomi business ecosystem: A case study of Yeelight technology
Through case study and in-depth interviews, this research investigated the devel-opment process of an IoT startup company—Yeelight Technologies—to gain insights about resources sharing and co-creation between an IoT smart hardware startup and the Xiaomi business ecosystem. The research findings show that during the life cycle of a start-up venture, certain cooperative strategies were employed to create partnerships to lower risks, to provide expertise transfer in a complementary fash-ion, and to create value while mitigating competition in the vulnerable start-up phase. The initial support in design expertise from Xiaomi played a vital and indis-pensable role for Yeelight in strengthen its design expertise, enabling the latter transition phase where Yeelight developed its own design strategy to compete with globally well-known lighting brands. The case study provides a reference about how an IoT smart hardware startup cooperates with a major company with a strong business ecosystem.