Requirements Engineering in Software Startups: a Grounded Theory Approach

Software startups face a very demanding market: they must deliver high innovative solutions in the shortest possible time. Resources are limited and time to reach market is short then it is extremely important to provide the right requirements. Nevertheless, software requirements are usually not clear and startups struggle to know what they should develop. This context affects how requirements engineering processes in these organizations are executed. This work focus on how these processes are executed in software startups and which effects context has on them. Nine interviews were conducted with founders or managers of different Brazilian software startups that operate in several market sectors and have different maturity level. Data was analyzed using Grounded Theory techniques such open and axial coding. As a result, a conceptual model of requirements engineering state-of-practice for software startups was developed and influences from the context were identified and described.