“Homogenize the markets”: Associations and substitutions in a startup’s sociotechnical arguments, 2016-2023

Early-stage technology startups must inductively develop a sociomaterial argument that carries out new combinations to provide value. Thus, the startup must prune the field of possible arguments as it tests different combinations, but it also must preserve different possibilities so that it does not prematurely foreclose possible combinations that might be attractive to different markets. Doing so allows the startup to either pivot in case one combination falls through, or “homogenize the markets” by providing a combination that addresses the concerns of multiple markets. In this preliminary analysis, I draw from Schumpeter’s categories of entrepreneurial combinations and from actor-network theorists’ early-1990s scholarship on technical innovations. Based on this scholarship, I examine the associations and substitutions described by a specific startup (“Sapient Engineering”) attempting to develop its Internet-of-Things device (“SapienTap”), trying different combinations and substitutions from 2016-2023. I triangulate interviews of Sapient Engineering’s three founders with documents from its archives, documenting how founders attempted to develop combinations that could work for two different markets. I conclude with implications for understanding how startups innovate by establishing, testing, and pruning such combinations to take advantage of new possibilities.