Entrepreneurship through the platform strategy in the digital era: Insights and research opportunities

Entrepreneurship has gained increasing research attention in recent years. Although researchers largely agree the importance of innovation in the process of entrepreneurship, little research explores how the emerging innovation approaches can facilitate the above process. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies on entrepreneurship adopting the open platform strategy in light of the digital evolution. To address this research gap, this study investigates how entrepreneurs can take advantage of the platform-based innovation ecosystem in the entrepreneurial process. First, the study discusses various platform-based innovations for entrepreneurs and elaborates on the implementation with examples and practices. Accordingly, the study demonstrates a framework which categorizes these innovation platforms to fulfill the needs at two pivotal stages of the innovation process (i.e. invention and commercialization) for entrepreneurs. The study also discusses the concerns and issues an innovation platform ecosystem may bring forth for entrepreneurs. Finally, the study proposes a number of topics that merit further research. This study represents the first effort to categorize online platforms and develop an innovation process-based framework of platforms for entrepreneurs.