The paper discusses the development process of academic spin offs' initial products. This topic has been rarely approached in the literature, which focuses mainly on large and consolidated companies. Spin offs' product development process presents some specificities such as nonlinear and recursive nature, although sequential; straight relation with the business strategy still in formation, affecting it and being affected by it. Based on a review of the pertinent literature and on case studies, we propose a model integrating the spin off's product development process with the initial business planning process. The Technology Roadmap (TRM) is used to link both processes also aiming at visualizing the business strategy evolution. The final goal is to support researchers / entrepreneurs, incubators, and investors during the initial take-off stage of this kind of enterprise
Academic spin-offs; Product development process; Initial planning
