*Purpose of the paper (What are the reasons for writing the paper or aims of the research? )

The aim of our research is to understand how high-tech startups deal with a situation of true, Knightian uncertainty about their potential markets and technologies.
In such context, firms must define a stable concept that will guide their development. This concept is usually defined in terms of markets, core technologies or competencies. Its early definition, even before the firm's creation, is seen as an important success factor. Early choice, however, limits firms flexibility; as a result, they are particularly sensitive to disruptions and turbulence: every discontinuity generates erratic trajectory, if not simply death.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the case of a firm that created a stable concept of a higher order, defined so as to drive its technology and market exploration process. The paper suggests that such "high-order concept" driven strategy allows a robust design of high-tech entrepreneurial firms, ensuring their resilience.

*Related work (What is the key research and literature to which this work is related?)

The work brings together the two fields of Entrepreneurship and Design theory. Entrepreneurship is concerned with the creation of new markets, but the design dimension is usually lacking the literature. Firm's products are assumed to either exist or to be easy to create for a given market.
Conversely, design theory generally assumes that products and technologies are developed in order to serve markets that already exist and have been selected by the firm.
High-tech startups, however, operate under Knightian uncertainty where neither products nor markets exist: both must be created simultaneously. This interplay brings a particular set of challenges. Our work relies on two theories: the Concept-Knowledge Design theory (CK) to explore the articulation of knowledge with the exploration of new markets and products concepts, and the Effectuation theory to explain how the uncertainty is resolved by entrepreneurs to create markets with relevant products.

*Design/Methodology/Approach (How are the objectives achieved? Include the main method(s) used for the research. What is the approach to the topic and what is the theoretical or subject scope of the paper?)

The paper is based on a longitudinal case study of a European startup developing wireless software. The research method is inductive but findings are systematically related to existing literature.
Our primary source of data is the founder and CEO of the firm, who is part of the research team as a reflective practitioner. As typical in qualitative research, the validity of our insights were checked with senior executives of the firm as well as with other academic members of the research team.
The theoretical subject of the paper is the development process of high-tech startups in the face of Knightian uncertainty.

*Findings (What was found in the course of the work? This will refer to analysis, discussion or results.)

While the firm we studied also started with an initial market and technology, those did not define the stable concept. Rather, the concept was defined as a generic process of learning and organizational development to drive markets and technologies exploration. It articulates:
* A business concept that is more general than a product-market pair, and
* A generic technical solution embodying the business concept.
The concept allows to simultaneously:
* Explore markets to create value with the generic technical solution
* Learn from the exploration in terms of markets and technology.
Because this concept is of a higher order than markets and technologies, it provides flexibility and allows cumulative learning. As these are two key factors of resilience, our research suggests that it forms the basis of a robust design of the entrepreneurial firm. Over its eight-year life span, the firm was able to withstand the burst of the Internet bubble and several other shocks.

*Research limitations/implications (Future research direction and any identified limitations in the research process.)

This paper results from a research initiated two years ago on the development mode of high-tech startups. Insight on the relation between the design process and the market exploration has already been gained.
Future research is expected to bring insights on the firm's strategy to achieve market leadership. It should result in an effectual framework to guide entrepreneurial firms engaging in new technology markets. To mitigate the issue of contingency, findings will also be confronted to a larger sample of firms in order to confirm and further the framework.

*Practical implications (What outcomes and implications for practice, applications and consequences are identified?)

The practical implication of this paper is to suggest an alternative approach to deliberate planning in managing in high-tech ventures. Rather than markets and products, strategy should define a market and technology exploration process if resilience is to be achieved.

*Originality/value of the paper (What is new in the paper? State the value of the paper and to whom.)

The paper is original in that:
* It links the design and market exploration processes to propose a generic approach to high-tech startup development.
* It is based on an in-depth longitudinal study, which is rare in entrepreneurship.
* It results from an academic-practitioner collaborative work.
Although theoretical in nature, it is based on, and directly useful for, real world high-tech venture management. As such, the paper is of value to:
* Academic researchers : the paper links entrepreneurship and design theory.
* Practitioners: The paper contributes to a theory of entrepreneurial management of nascent markets in high-tech contexts.