화장품산업 초기 기술창업기업의 성장요인에 관한 사례연구: 충북창조경제혁신센터 6개월챌린지플랫폼사업의 지원기업 중심으로

The Korean government has been focusing on supporting technology startups to solve social and economic problems such as low growth, declining economic growth rate, rising youth unemployment rate and lack of new growth engine. Although the failure rate of young technology startups is very high, relevant researches are still scant. On the basis of previous researches, this study has identified four growth factors of technology startups: characteristics of entrepreneurs, technical superiority and originality of business items, focused marketing strategy, and follow-up government support projects. Five young technology startup cases were selected and analyzed in the cosmetics industry which were supported by the Six-month Challenge Platform project of Chungbuk Creation Economic Innovation Center. The main findings of the case study were as follows: First, product development through inhouse R&D rather than external contracted R&D was beneficial to acquiring follow-up government support projects and external investment. Second, choosing a small niche market and concentrating marketing efforts on the target market had a positive effect on firm performance. And, third, relevance of entrepreneurs’ college major and technological originality of business items were confirmed to influence firm performance positively in the early stage. The results are expected to help young technology startups survive successfully and establish a foothold for growth in their early stage