“Reverse Shark Tanks”: A New Method for Connecting Start-ups for Scale-Up

This paper presents a new method for connecting start-ups in particularly highly volatile and uncertain market conditions with potential customers to enable their mutual co-creation of new innovative solutions targeting specific needs of their potential customers. The method is coined reverse shark tanks inspired by concepts like the Lions Dent. The goal of this paper is to investigate the expediency of reverse shark tanks for start-ups to qualify their innovative ideas and solutions and to gain access to potential customers for future co-creation efforts. The potential customers are typically larger firms in search for innovative solutions that fit their specific needs. However, these firms typically have a hard time identifying the providers capable of meeting the specific challenges. The paper contributes to the existing literature on innovation and business modelling by developing a new method to facilitate the meeting and the establishment of co-creation relationships