Today the world is experiencing an increasing focus on entrepreneurship and startup companies both from the entrepreneurs and from society in general, but also from investors who wants to invest in startup companies and use their experience and money to turn startups in to successful companies.
Often the challenge is that neither the investor nor the entrepreneur knows how to assess the current situation of the startup business, which makes the investment process and the following business development difficult. Often this result in failure for the startup company and more than half of these types of businesses are closed within three years.
The purpose of this thesis is to create transparency about the assessment of companies in a product development stage. The problem statement of the thesis is: How can startup companies commercialization prerequisites be assessed?

Through a comprehensive theoretical and empirical research, the thesis analysis which elements are essential for a startup company to achieve commercialization. On a theoretical level, this is done by including Michael Porters Value Chain and Five Forces theory. Empirically the thesis includes numerous cases from successful Danish companies who have reached commercialization. This combination results in the identification of essential elements for startup companies in this process, which are tested on a theoretically level with the inclusion of numerous business model theories and on an empirically level with the inclusion of a case with a startup company who is currently undergoing this development stage.
The research results in a concept model, which includes all the essential elements, which have been identified through the thesis, but at the same time, these are combined in the concept model, which presents the elements in a logical and systematic way and makes it possible to use in practice.

The thesis concludes that a focus on both technology and the market is essential to achieve successful commercialization. It identifies the relevant elements in a product development process and structure these elements in a concept model, which makes it possible and logical to use in the assessment of a business undergoing a product development process.