- A report of GEM (2018) stated that start-up firms with the total time doing business under 3.5 years have only 20.8% success rate. Among various reasons leading to their failure, not having an appropriate innovating business model is considered the major one. Thus, this research was conducted with the purpose of testing the influence of business model innovation on the business performance of start-up firms. This study applied PLS-SEM approach to process data collected from 150 Vietnamese start-up firms. It is confirmed based on the research findings that BMI’s three basic components have impacts with the same direction on the performance of start-up firms in their beginning period of doing business. The study results collected have presented practical contribution to the management level of each start-up firm in order to improve their effectiveness. On the other hand, suggestions are also proposed to assist other relating organizations in developing their abilities to support start-up activities. In addition, research limitations and directions for further researches are proposed.

Keywords : Business model innovation, Start-up performance, Start-up firms.