Abstract
Recognizing the knowledge and opportunities that customers and users can provide, a shift toward user-centered approaches to innovation has been gaining a large interest. Design thinking has been introduced as an innovation approach that brings creativity and user-centeredness to businesses. Despite this, little attention has been given to design thinking in startups. Though design thinking has gained considerable interest, there is still a lack of empirical research and literature on how design thinking is implemented and how it actually works. Furthermore the research has mainly been focused on large organization, leaving a gap where empirical research of design thinking in startups is needed. In this study, I attempt a more systematic exploration of how startups use design thinking. An explorative study was conducted with qualitative interviews with key informants from startups with design thinking profiles. The three themes that emerged from the analysis are how design thinking is perceived, what applications design thinking were used for and how it was implemented in the startups. This study contributes to an increased growing body of empirical research, which can be used for future research and adds a practical view to connect design thinking and entrepreneurship.