Abstract:

This study deals with the development of startup ideas, created in three entrepreneurial hackathons. We present a case of two similar interactive workshops, which took place after these three entrepreneurial hackathons. International students, with their startup ideas were involved in the process of further developing their ideas. This study focuses on students’ perception of growth and scalability of their startup ideas as well as their capability as an entrepreneur to implement these ideas. This study follows a quantitative research methodology. For the purpose of data collection, two surveys were developed. Empirical data was collected at the end of both workshops. Our analysis shows that according to students’ perception, the ‘number of business activities’ is the most important variable of business growth whereas the ‘age of the startup’ as the least important one. Secondly, students consider ‘business goals’ as the most important management factor for growth of the startup and ‘business processes’ the least important. Further, a business model that is free from capacity constraints and that would provide a platform for other businesses is the one that students would most probably adopt while implementing their startup ideas. The study also provides some insight into the confidence and risk tolerance profile of participating students as a potential entrepreneur. The results indicate that the workshops equally enhanced students’ productivity to further develop their startup business ideas. This study is connected to our current knowledge and contributes to the entrepreneurial education literature by providing insights into the practice of developing startup ideas.

Keywords:

Startup ideas, growth, scalability, entrepreneurship, higher education.