Gear-up your software start-up company by the first reference customer-nomothetic research study in the Thai software industry

In this research the meaning of the first reference customer for the start-up companies, which produce complex software products has been studied. Which factors are important to gain the most out of the first reference have been also studied. The study has been done using nomothetic research methodology: hypotheses have been created and a survey was executed among Thai companies. One of the results indicates that it is important to utilize the first reference for finding sales arguments. However, only some of the start-up companies do that. Instead, 40% of the investigated companies used the first reference to verify technology, although this type of technology verification correlates negatively with the sales growth. Evidence that the market value of the reference customer has significant meaning in the sales growth has not been found. This might mean that the first reference, as such, seems to have value for further sales. This research complements the model, which was created previously by Ruokolainen and Igel, by creating a specific set of variables to help succeed with the first reference customer.