Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

THE REAL VALUE—FRESH BLOOD INTO THE SYSTEM

Universities provide one key input into the startup community—a steady stream of smart young people. Some of these students will be interested in being entrepreneurs; others will be interested in working for entrepreneurial companies. Either way, if the startup community can connect effectively to these students, it’s a huge win for the university, the startup community, and the students.

I’m always fascinated by the reaction I get when I talk to students in entrepreneurship classes. Recently, I gave a lecture at an MIT class called Founders Journey. It was a Course 6 class (computer science) and the room was full; I was the guest lecturer near the end of the semester. During my class, I asked how many of the students intended to start a company right out of college. Only a few hands went up. Although I was surprised, I started asking random people in the room why they took the course. Almost all of them said that they wanted to learn what it was like to be an entrepreneur, better understand what it would be like to work in a startup, and have some context for the future when they might want to start their own company. I then asked them how many wanted to work for a startup, rather than a big company, after graduating. Almost every hand in the room went up.

There are many different ways to engage students with local startups. Ben Limmer created one approach, called startups2students, while he was a sophomore at CU Boulder when he grew ...