This paper discusses route-to-market principles for design-led startups in the context of innovation management. It critiques the common business model canvas for being a static model, where a dynamic time-based framework that allows for continuous planning, would be of better use. The success prospects of a startup business much depend on the management of development processes which lead to the acquisition of IP, financial assets, and complementary assets, a term coined by David Teece to articulate the ‘additional resources and capabilities needed to bring a technology product to market’ (Clarysse / Kiefer, p.80). The purpose behind the acquisition and management of assets is the strengthening of a company’s appropriability regime, a term which sums up ‘the environmental factors... that govern an innovator’s ability to capture the profits generated by an innovation.’ (Teece, 1988, p. 287). Using insights gained from a series of case studies conducted within the InnovationRCA incubator through semi-structured interviews, this paper presents an alternative business management model that can be used to assess and manage the business attributes of design-led startups over time. This paper reveals how the appropriability regime of innovative startups can be strengthened through effective and dynamic management of intellectual property in relation to other key assets.