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

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Research Paper

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Jun 25th, 9:00 AM

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.

 

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