Blended startups: Combining IT with social, mobile, instant communities

In this paper, three IT-based startups are presented that have each “hitched their wagon to a star” and have built their fledgling enterprise by blending the social, mobile, and instant elements of IT into their startup. This paper takes the form of a case study that first describes the founding story of one startup, TweetPhoto, with specific attention paid to the elements that prompted the growth of TweetPhoto, despite not being the first entrant in the mobile photo-sharing category. As a “live” case, readers are then encouraged to explore and compare the initial actions of the founders of two very new IT- based startups, Instacanvas and Instapparel, in light of those made by the founders of TweetPhoto. Questions for class discussions and student research in entrepreneurship-related courses are provided.Copyright (c) 2013 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.