A new study on entrepreneurial culture reveals interesting details
But ideas for startups have become more original and innovative, notes Deutsche Welle. The trend is the use of digital technologies, including virtual and augmented reality. More than a third of startups operate in the green economy and social entrepreneurship.
These and other curious facts (for example, about the best universities for startups) have been published in a new report "Deutscher Startup Monitor", which is compiled annually by the Federal Association of Startups together with the consulting company PwC. The study involved 4,700 young entrepreneurs.
Who starts startups and where
Last year in Germany, just over half a million people decided to start their own business. There are several centers on the startup map. The most favorable situation for starting a business is in Berlin (16% of the total number of startups). The capital is followed by Hamburg, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, as well as Munich. Looking at the federal states, North Rhine-Westphalia leads (every fifth startup is located here), Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony.
The average age of a German startup founder is 35. There are still many more men. While overall among entrepreneurs 40% are women, in the startup sector only 16% are. Two-thirds of startups are founded by men, and only a tenth by women. Every fifth startup has a mixed founding team.
The absolute majority of startup owners have a higher education. Every fourth has a master's degree, every fifth has a bachelor's or specialist degree. Graduates of economics, engineering, computer science, mathematics and natural sciences predominate.
Top universities for startups
The researchers also identified the top ten universities whose graduates most often create startups. For the third year in a row, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) leads. In second place is another university from the Bavarian capital – Ludwig Maximilian University. Next on the list are the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Berlin University of Technology and the University of Mannheim.
The second five universities that nurture young entrepreneurs include the universities of Münster, Bremen, Cologne, Bochum and the RWTH Aachen University.
According to one of the authors of the report, scientist from the University of Duisburg-Essen Tobias Kollmann, in general, German universities have paid very little attention to entrepreneurship so far. "If we want to improve the situation with startups, we need to start with universities," notes the professor of digital economy in an interview with the German portal Business Insider. "We must stop training personnel only for paid employment." He proposes making the subject "Founding a Startup" mandatory at least in the faculties of economics, business informatics and computer science.
From university to business
So far, individual programs aimed at popularizing entrepreneurship and providing concrete support to students and graduates in this area are rare in German universities. But there are beacon universities. At the Technical University of Munich, for example, the specialized center UnternehmerTUM has been operating for a long time, where students nurturing business ideas receive consultations, help in creating prototypes, establishing business connections, and even provide start-up capital.
At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the associations KIT-Business-Club and KIT Campus Transfer were created to develop innovations. There is also a business incubator here, and on the crowdfunding platform KITcrowd, young entrepreneurs raise funds to realize their ideas. Only last year, 18 startups emerged from this university.
At the University of Cologne, in the winter semester of 2019, the entrepreneurship support center ESC Gateway was founded. Its tasks include not only developing a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in various faculties, in Cologne itself and the surrounding region, but also conducting research in the areas of data science, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.
Among the small private universities that promote the development of entrepreneurial thinking, the report notes the Otto Beisheim School of Management (WHU) near Koblenz, the Leipzig Graduate School of Management (HHL) and the CODE University founded in 2017 in Berlin.