Many startups fail, and we still do not know why. It is the purpose of this study to know if a relationship exists between business model innovation and startup, and whether networking and competitive advantage can improve their relationship. We hypothesized that business model innovation relates to startup and that networking and competitive advantage significantly enhance the relationship between business model innovation and startup. Fifty-one respondents participate in this study. The partial least square statistical technique is used to analyze the data. This analytical technique is appropriate for parametric analysis for such a sample size. The null hypothesis that no relationship exists between business model innovation and startup is rejected. The null hypothesis that networking and competitive advantage is not related to business model innovation is also rejected. However, the null hypothesis that there is no direct relationship between networking and startup is accepted; the association is not direct but indirect. The null hypothesis that no direct association between competitive advantage and startup is rejected. There is a negative association between competitive ad-vantage and startup. Both networking and competitive advantage improve the relationship between business model innovation and startup. However, they must be used with caution.

In today’s turbulent and competitive world, strategic planning plays an important role for the
success of firms. Despite the fact that there are literally numerous models proposed for different
companies in various states and structures, the possibility of using strategic planning for
startups has never been seriously considered. In this paper, we present a survey by asking
experts to find out whether strategic planning is suitable for startups. We also propose a model
for strategic planning in startups based on the strategic planning models for small businesses
and entrepreneurship concepts. The model is similar to other models and what differentiates
this models form other approaches is the methodology used for internal and external analysis
and the parameters taken into consideration. The proposed model is examined on an Iranian
food packaging industry for validation. The preliminary results indicate that the success of
startups depends on two sets of parameters: “entrepreneurial opportunities” and “competitive
advantages and entrepreneurial characteristics”.