Customer Involvement aims to strengthen customer orientation and place it in the focus of entrepreneurial decisions. Customer involvement can improve product or service quality and thus reduce the risk of failure for young companies. The article discusses the importance of customer involvement for the development of robust business models. Customers represent a central resource for young companies in particular. Their targeted involvement in development processes not only sharpens business models but thus also contributes fundamentally to decision-oriented risk management of this type of company. The article provides a conceptual and theoretical view of customer involvement as a resource for young companies and discusses potentials and problems in this context. Finally, approaches for lean risk management based on this are shown, and central future research fields are derived.