Freelancer Supported Innovation in Startups

The startups face the difficulty to conduct innovation management activities owing to the limited resources they own. This however can be addressed by outsourcing fewer of these activities to freelancers. This could also be useful to these startups to better explore the markets during their initial business operation stages which otherwise results in their market failures. This chapter reports the strategies adopted by the startups to involve freelancers in their innovation management activities especially value proposition innovation, the associated challenges, and the business impacts in the market. The overall outcome is that the association is beneficial for the startups if the freelancer selection is done strategically and the association is considered to develop the skills in-house rather than completely depending on outsourcing. The rise of the gig economy is a great opportunity for the startups looking for the competencies which otherwise are lacking in-house, but the freelancer should be virtually integrated with the startup team with long-term focus from the beginning of the business operations. The sustainable support of freelancers helps startups to quickly react to the new market insights to gain competitive advantage. Freelancers have also powered startups to globalize their business operations. This chapter also discusses collection of freelancer selection parameters (framework) that can assist startups in selecting freelancers strategically across freelancing marketplaces. The selection characteristics assist startups in determining which freelancing platforms best meet their needs, for instance, getting global market information or creating prototypes, and also help them reduce their outsourcing efforts. The best decision is determined based on the collective intelligence of previous feedback about freelancers and a review of the platforms’ services to guarantee that the selection criteria are met.