This study aims to characterize the state-of-the-art of the software startup education by analyzing and identifying best practices, opportunities and gaps on this field. To do so, we conducted a systematic mapping study in order to analyze and evaluate studies on software startup education. As a result, we found 31 publications in this process. These studies were classified into four categories: real projects, multidiscipline, environment and teaching. We concluded that research on software startup education is still scarce. Furthermore, there are several gaps and opportunities to be explored in future works. One of them is the difficulty in providing a real world experience in a educational setting. Successful cases reported combine three major components: real world projects, the right environment and a multidisciplinary context.