What’s driving student
entrepreneurship?
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This year at South by Southwest (SXSW), The
Blackstone Charitable Foundation will be discussing
the trends shaping entrepreneurship across college
campuses today. You can learn more about our panel
and our sponsorship of the Student Start-Up Madness
pitch competition below. In preparation for our panel
on creating networks of student entrepreneurs, we
surveyed the Student Start Up Madness participants and
Blackstone LaunchPad network on their experiences to
uncover the key questions we want to tackle while we’re
in Austin next month.
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When you look at the main reasons why students start their venture, almost 75% of ventures
came from a good idea or a personal experience. We were surprised to see so few students finding
inspiration from their classroom or a campus resource, while program staff on college campuses
noted the opposite and identified resources on college campuses and class projects as the main
driver of student entrepreneurship on their campuses. Interestingly, college campuses are investing
more than ever before in entrepreneurship courses, as well as building out majors and minors
in entrepreneurship. Based on what we’ve seen, we see a huge opportunity for campuses to not
only support existing ventures but also to help identify potential entrepreneurs earlier through a
number of venues – both experiential opportunities as well as academic environments – to help
foster entrepreneurship.
What do you
think is the
biggest challenge
to starting
a business?
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Top 3 reasons…
When looking at the biggest challenges student entrepreneurs face, it’s worth nothing that knowing
what to do was a bigger challenge than access to funding. We see this across our Blackstone
LaunchPad network as student entrepreneurs come to our campus offices seeking advice or
support. That being said, capital is still critical. Dorm Room Fund, who will join our panel at SXSW,
is working to better connect students to funders. But is there an opportunity to better connect
funding with mentorship?
What has
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helpful resource
on campus in
supporting your
venture?
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While we’re excited to see the value of school accelerators like Blackstone LaunchPad, the
importance of mentorship is clear. For many students, it’s invaluable to have a guiding voice to help
navigate starting their venture. But the challenge we see across all these resources is that they’re
often limited to a student’s existing network. For students in rural communities or cities with fewer
start-ups, this limitation is especially challenging. As start-up culture continues to thrive, students
everywhere need access to high-quality sources of support.
What is the main
reason why
students don’t
start businesses
in college?
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When asked why students don’t start businesses in college, the largest reason was again being
unsure of the basic steps in building a business. The second most common concern, ‘lack of
exposure to entrepreneurship,’ reinforces this trend – too many students don’t have the resources
in place to help get good ideas off the ground. This creates an important call to action for leaders in
both the academic and start-up communities – empower entrepreneurs as early as possible.
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Curious to hear more about
what Blackstone has
planned at SXSW?
You can come join us at…
Panel: Building a Global Network
of College Entrepreneurs
Monday, March 13 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM at the Hilton, Salon D
Panelists from Blackstone LaunchPad, Techstars, and Dorm Room Fund will discuss how to
support student entrepreneurs globally. They’ll look at the challenges and opportunities in
connecting campuses and weigh the broader impact of “thinking big.” Panel will be moderated by
Bill Murphy, Blackstone’s CTO.
SXSW Badge required to attend.
Student Start-Up Madness
Pitch Competition
Monday, March 13 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM at the Hilton
Student Startup Madness is a nationwide tournament-style competition for college student digital
media startups, culminating with the national finals at SXSW. This year, nearly 50% of the final 64
teams were from Blackstone LaunchPad program.
SXSW Badge required to attend.
www.blackstone.com
@BlackstoneEI