Gruendungsgarage – A Best-Practice Example of an Academic Start-up Accelerator

Abstract

Over the past four decades, entrepreneurship has grown within universities faster than virtually any other area of intellectual pursuit. And it appears that the pace is accelerating with more universities seeking to develop programs and centers fo-cused on entrepreneurship. Yet, understanding how to build entrepreneurship programs that empower and transform has remained challenging for some institu-tions. This paper investigated the development of an entrepreneurship program called Gruendungsgarage [1]. The Gruendungsgarage is a cooperation between the University of Graz (KFU) and the Graz University of Technology (TUG). Originally it was designed as an interdisciplinary and interuniversity teaching format offered as an elective course where students were able to work on their own real business ideas while getting assistance from university experts as well as from successful practitioners with a wide range of experience. Because of its popularity and constant improvement, Gruendungsgarage became more and more professional and over time changed its format into an academic start-up accelera-tor. Setting up university start-up accelerator programs has been a worldwide proven model that enables students to intensively develop their business idea into a marketable product or service in just a few months. Since the winter semester 2017/18 Gruendungsgarage has admitted not only students but also scientific staff. University and postdoctoral researchers benefit from a wide range of Gruendungsgarage services, as technical scientists with high-tech innovation get supported by experts and entrepreneurs, creating a business model suitable to their scientific discoveries

A systematic literature review on accelerators

“…The extended intervention (n=36) involves the inclusion of additional services to typical interventions based on the participants' needs. The most commonly offered additional services include: office space (Clarysse et al 2015;Clarysse and Yusubova 2014;Connolly et al 2018;Drori and Wright 2018;Fernandes 2016;Gonzalez-Uribe and Leatherbee 2016;Goswami et al 2018;Grilo et al 2017;Gutstein and Brem 2018;Kanbach and Stubner 2016;Lall et al 2013;Miles et al 2017;Radojevich-Kelley and Hoffman 2012;Thompson 2012;Uhm et al 2018;Vandeweghe and Fu 2018); free housing (Bliemel et al 2019;Brown et al 2019;Fernandes 2016;Fraiberg 2017;Harima and Freudenberg 2019;Thompson 2012;Uhm et al 2018); and building a product (Caley and Kula 2013;Glinik 2019;Grilo et al 2017;Malek et al 2014;Shao and Shi 2018;Vandeweghe and Fu 2018). Less observed are services such as: financial and legal support (Clarysse et al 2015;Gardner and Webster 2017;Glinik 2019;Grilo et al 2017;Shao and Shi 2018;Thompson 2012); stipends (Connolly et al 2018;Thompson 2012); catering, materials needed for the workshop, and participant incentives are arranged (Gutstein and Brem 2018);...…”

“…Our review of interventions revealed a proliferation of extended approaches to deliver services to startup firms, going beyond the typical bundle of services to include a range of additional new services such as lean startup training (Mansoori 2017;Uhm et al 2018), and design thinking (Glinik 2019) often delivered in innovative ways, such as through the use of open innovation (Gutstein and Brem 2018) and living lab approaches (Haukipuro et al 2019). Changes in the way in which these services are provided, either through a standard package or through customization (Breznitz and Zhang 2019), has also been observed.…”

Empowering College Student Entrepreneurship During the Pandemic for Economics Sustainability by Maximizing Digital Technologies

“…One of the materials covered in workshop for starter is mindset shifting to Entrepreneurship. Making use of alumni as partner to give workshop is said to be the stronger integration between alumni and the current students as beginners in the knowledge transfer and the exchange of experience (Glinik, 2019). There are other five topics of the workshop for starter level.…”

“…They just try to start a business and think that it will run smoothly and do not have a long term plan for the business. A study revealed that relevant skills and mindset acquired for entrepreneurship can be prepared by giving appropriate education at university levels (Glinik, 2019). In addition to mindset, motivation is also a necessary factor in starting and running a business for it influences the business in the long run.…”

The Entrepreneurial Student's Experience Journey Through Engineering Education

“…One of the few examples targeting the entrepreneurial intention is the course "Gruendungsgarage" (GG, "Founders´ garage"), offered at Graz University of Technology (TUG) [14]. The GG course aims to offer an authentic entrepreneurship experience, as it guides start-ups from their first idea to a professional business that can stand on its own feet.…”