Factors of a Successful Pre-incubator Program: Case Hatch Incubator
Suvi Lehtonen
2020 Laurea
Laurea University of Applied Sciences
Factors of a Successful Pre-incubator Program: Case Hatch Incubator
Suvi Lehtonen Liiketalous Bachelor’s Thesis December, 2020
Laurea University of Applied Sciences Abstract Business Management Business Administration
Suvi Lehtonen Factors of a Successful Pre-incubator Program: Case Hatch Incubator Year 2020 Number of pages 51
This thesis follows the yearly development of a pre-incubator program, Hatch Incubator Program, after its initial founding and pilot year in 2017 to the plan of the program in 2020. The assignment for the thesis came from Laurea Entrepreneurship Society Ry, under which the Hatch Incubator Program was founded by the author of the thesis. Purpose of the thesis was to offer the key factors and data points needed to the client of a successful pre-incubator program, for the client to continue developing an incubator program that best serves university of applied sciences students with their early-stage business ideas. The objective was to find the basic principles of a successful program and experience from the attendee’s viewpoint.
The knowledge base of the thesis goes over definitions of a startup, incubation and pre- incubators and dives deeper on to why startups fail, Finnish startup ecosystem and entrepreneurial support in institutes of higher education. The thesis follows service design principles and implements the double diamond -approach of divergent and convergent thinking. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected each year, in forms of feedback surveys, interviews, teams’ observations, benchmarking, and brainstorming.
Multiple success factors were defined, including a switch in the short- and long-term goals of the program and focal point of attendee’s entrepreneurial skills instead of the development of the business served the program and its target group better. Each iteration of the double diamond process brought something important to the program and increased its quality. The result is a well-defined program capable of scaling its operations to serve more specific fields of pre-startups or more development stages of a new venture in the future.
Keywords: Incubation, startup, pre-incubator, student entrepreneurship
Laurea-ammattikorkeakoulu Tiivistelmä Liiketalous Tradenomi (AMK)
Suvi Lehtonen Factors of a Successful Pre-incubator Program: Case Hatch Incubator
Vuosi 2020 Sivumäärä 51
Tämä opinnäytetyö seuraa esihautomo-ohjelman, Hatch Incubator:n, vuosittaista kehitystä sen perustamis- ja pilottivuoden jälkeen vuodesta 2017, ohjelman suunniteltuun toteutukseen vuonna 2020. Opinnäytetyö tehtiin toimeksiantona Laurea Entrepreneurship Society Ry:lle, joka omistaa opinnäytetyön tekijän perustaman Hatch Incubator ohjelman. Opinnäytetyön tarkoituksena oli tarjota toimeksiantajalle ne avaintekijät, jotka vaikuttavat esihautomo- ohjelman onnistumiseen, jotta toimeksiantaja voi jatkaa esi-hautomo-ohjelman kehittämistä sellaiseksi, joka parhaiten palvelee ammattikorkeakoulun opiskelijoita heidän varhaisten liikeideoidensa kanssa. Opinnäytetyön tavoitteena oli löytää onnistuneen ohjelman perusperiaatteet, jotka mahdollistavat onnistuneen ohjelma kokemuksen osallistujien näkökulmasta.
Opinnäytetyön tietopohjassa käydään läpi startupin, hautomotoiminnan ja esihautomoiden määritelmät ja syvennytään suomalaiseen startup-ekosysteemiin, siihen miten yrittäjyyttä voi tukea korkeakouluissa ja siihen miksi startupit niin usein epäonnistuvat. Opinnäytetyössä noudatetaan palvelunmuotoilun periaatteita ja toteutetaan käyttämällä kaksinkertaista timanttimenetelmää. Sekä laadullisia että määrällisiä tietoja kerättiin vuosittain palautekyselyjen, haastattelujen, tiimien havaintojen, vertailuanalyysin ja aivoriihien muodossa.
Opinnäytetyössä tunnistettiin useita menestystekijöitä, kuten ohjelman lyhyen ja pitkän aikavälin tavoitteiden vaihtaminen. Myös ohjelman keskittyminen osallistujan yrittäjyysosaamiseen pelkän liiketoiminnan kehittämisen sijaan palveli paremmin ohjelmaa ja sen kohderyhmää. Jokainen kaksinkertaisen timantin prosessin iterointi toi ohjelmalle jotain tärkeää ja nosti sen laatua. Tuloksena on hyvin määritelty ohjelma, joka kykenee tulevaisuudessa laajentamaan toimintaansa palvellakseen tarkemmin määritettyjä toimialoja tai useampia kasvuyrittäjyyden kehitysvaiheita.
Asiasanat: Esihautomo, hautomo, startup, opiskelijayrittäjyys
Contents
1 Introduction ...... 6 1.1 The purpose and the objective of the thesis ...... 7 1.2 Laurea Entrepreneurship Society Ry ...... 7 1.3 Hatch Incubator Program ...... 8 2 A Startup ...... 9 2.1 Early Startup Development Phases ...... 10 2.2 Finnish Startup Ecosystem ...... 12 2.3 Why startups fail ...... 14 3 Supporting Entrepreneurship in Institutes of Higher Education ...... 16 3.1 Incubation ...... 20 3.2 Pre-Incubation ...... 22 4 Research & development methods used in the thesis ...... 23 4.1 Service Design Principles and Double Diamond ...... 23 4.2 Data and methods used for the development double diamond process ...... 25 5 Results ...... 27 5.1 Improvements after a successful pilot year ...... 27 5.2 From big changes to enabling scaling ...... 31 5.3 Checking the layout of a completed thesis ...... 34 6 Analysis of the key results and proposals for future development ...... 36 References ...... 40 Figures ...... 47 Appendices ...... 48
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1 Introduction
In the development of innovative communities, entrepreneurship is crucial, and it is necessary to acknowledge entrepreneurship as a driving force for economic development, job creation and to the competitiveness of the society. Entrepreneurs and the startups they build have been central driving forces of economic growth around the world. Since several of these new ventures depend heavily on technological creativity, cutting-edge science and highly trained personnel, it comes as no surprise that university-linked incubators have been an essential part of the path from discovery of a concept to profitable startup for so many.
Business incubation has proven to help new ventures become more successful and to boost growth and rate of survivability of the member companies. Pre-incubator does not only help students start a business, but also prepare them to learn necessary entrepreneurial skills and knowledge on running and developing their business-related topics like finances, human resource or marketing, along with and as part of their studies.
This thesis follows the developed of a pre-incubator program, Hatch Incubator after its founding and pilot year in 2017 to the plan of the program in 2020. The assignment came from Laurea Entrepreneurship Society Ry, under which the program was founded by the author of the thesis in 2017. Purpose of the thesis was to offer the success factors and data points needed to the client on the foundations of a successful pre-incubator program and them to continue developing an incubator program that best serves university students with early-stage business ideas.
Before the founding of the program, there was not a constructed pre-incubator program available to the target group of the client, leaving in the noticeable gap on the entrepreneurial journey offering for a student entrepreneur.
The methods used in the thesis followed service design principles and implemented the double diamond -approach of divergent and convergent thinking. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected each year, in forms of feedback surveys, interviews, teams’ observations, benchmarking, and brainstorming.
Each iteration of the double diamond process brought something important to the program and increased its quality. Multiple success factors were defined, including a switch in the short- and long-term goals of the program and focal point of founder’s entrepreneurial skills instead of the development of the business served the program and its target group better. The result is a program capable of scaling its operations to serve more specific fields of pre- startups or more development stages of new ventures.
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1.1 The purpose and the objective of the thesis
The purpose of the thesis is to offer the success factors and data points needed to the client to continue developing an incubator program that best serves university students with their early-stage business ideas.
The objective of the study is to find the basic principles of a successful program and experience from the attendee’s viewpoint and to find out with what of the principles the program can provide the best experience possible without compromising the learning values.
Research questions used in the study were what of the successful attributes and possible threats for the execution of success of the program, if and how shifting focus bettered the program from years 2017, and 2018 to the year 2019, and what are the key attributes that could contribute on the program’s growth in future.
1.2 Laurea Entrepreneurship Society Ry
Laurea Entrepreneurship Society Ry (latter LaureaES) is a non-profit organization run by a student-governed board, operating for the students Laurea University of Applied Sciences. LaureaES's mission is to promote entrepreneurship and help students to gain knowledge and skills in the field of business, self-development and entrepreneurship. LaureaES operated by organizing educational events, programs and other activities aimed towards students. (LaureaES, 2020)
The community behind LaureaES started in early 2008, when an event series, Yrittäjyystiistai, Entrepreneurship Tuesday, organized by some entrepreneurial minded students, started in Laurea University of Applied Sciences campus. LaureaES was officially founded in 2010 and has operated to inspire and help current and future student entrepreneurs in Laurea University of Applied Sciences ever since. LaureaES organizes events around entrepreneurship as well as around professional and personal growth, and their leading target group is students in Laurea University of Applied Sciences.
The assignment for the thesis came from LaureaES as to test, develop and implement and successful incubator program under LaureaES and its target group of student entrepreneurs. The assignment was given after the pilot year of the program in 2017, and continued until the fall 2020, including three iterations of the service design principle used in the thesis.
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1.3 Hatch Incubator Program
Hatch Incubator Program is a two-month intensive course, aimed at students interested in starting their own business. The program was founded in 2017 and has been since organized once every year. The program is owned and managed by the student lead entrepreneurship Society Laurea Entrepreneurship Society Ry in collaboration with Laurea University of Applied Sciences. Due to the 3AMK collaboration, Hatch Incubator Program is open to not only for its partner university’s students but also for students from Haaga-Helia and Metropolia University of applied sciences. Hatch Incubator Program is organized in Greater Helsinki Region and lasts eight to nine weeks.
In 2017 LaureaES had early-stage entrepreneurship events aimed for those who dreamt about entrepreneurship and an accelerator program, Cambridge Venture Camp. Cambridge Venture Camp – an accelerator program for student entrepreneurs seeks to help students to start their business, (objective; business id) or find their first customers and is a part of the student entrepreneur customer journey in LaureaES as the last step of the way. While mapping out student’s customer journey from to entrepreneur, there was a prominent cap where a program focused on business idea incubation should be. LaureaES’s mission is to support students in becoming entrepreneurs, and their actions were scattered on the scale inspire, network, develop. After Hatch Incubator program was founded, the scale was modified to include both of the business development programs, as an incubate – section. (LaureaES, 2020, Cambridge Venture Camp, 2020)
The target group for the Hatch Incubator Program is students, usually working on their first business ideas. Because of nature of the program’s content, it was later added to the selection criteria that the business idea in question should be aimed towards innovation, new concepts or scalable ideas, as the content of the program is mostly targeted towards developing and validating towards growth business models. After the first year, the selection was opened for non-students with case-by-case valuation, in case they match the selection criteria, and are tied to some university ecosystem, like an open university or just graduated or starting soon and could benefit from the program. Actual students were still favoured over non-student on the selection if they tied with a non-student in the selection process.
The program itself consists of workshops, lectures and mentoring given by industry professionals and entrepreneurs, from a topic that benefits new and upcoming student entrepreneurs. The program also consists of homework suggested reading material. The lectures and topics are varying from year to year, with central themes like business pitching practises, financial education, team building, business model formation and idea validation or proof of concept stay stable in every year. Since 2018 the program has also included team- building activities and an intensive workshop weekend, hosted by the programs project team,
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focusing on the basics of the startup ecosystem, pitching, and business model creation on top of emphasis on entrepreneurial and growth mindset and personal wellbeing.
On its official definition, Hatch Incubator Program is a business pre-incubator, focusing on new ventures before they are founded and assisting on the planning phase before registration of the company. Due to a lack of recognition of the word business incubator among students, the pre-definition was left out in the marketing and branding of the program.
The author of the thesis founded Hatch Incubator Program in 2017 and led its actions in 2017 and 2018 as a project manager and worked as a development lead and mentor in 2019 and 2020.
2 A Startup
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a startup to be either “the act or an instance of setting in operation or motion” or “a fledgeling business enterprise”. Even though the definition of a startup has been a debated topic and according to Business Insider article from 2014, there is no definition for a startup that to entrepreneurs, investors or ecosystem players agree on, startups are often defined as a new business venture. Not all new businesses qualify as a startup, and even without official definition, there are distinctive differences between a corner store and an innovative technology startup. When differentiating startups from small businesses, most talked about attributes are young age, growth, revenue, profitability or stability, or better the lack of it, but one does not stand up above others as most important. (Shontell, 2014, Merriam-Webster, 2020)
Said that one attribute of a startup that most of the sources do agree on is startup’s desire and ability to grow. Paul Graham, the co-founder of the Y-combinator accelerator, writes on his blog that a startup is a company designed to grow fast and is just founded does not necessarily define it. In his opinion, all other attributes that usually are associated with startups follow from growth, like taking venture funding, work in cut-edge technology or having an exit, and even that most startups are new ventures, the age of the startup does not necessarily define it. (Graham, 2012)
Startup’s aim to grow and seek growth and enabling business models seems to be one of the main differences between the startups and small businesses. Steve Blank, a Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur and Stanford professor, explained that when small businesses run according to the foxed business model while startups aim to search for a repeatable, profitable and scalable business model. A startup, therefore, would be defined as an organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. (Blank, 2010)
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But maybe the most universally used definition comes from the creator of Lean Startup Methodology, Eric Ries: “A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” (Ries, 2011, 27) Blank’s statement of the search for a repeatable and scalable business model suits Ries’s definition as well, as the search of the business model and product-market fit seem to be essential for startups. Startups don’t typically have a fully developed business model or product on their first years of business and lack adequate funding or other resources to grow, scale up or move on to the next phase of business. Supporting previous statements, Investopedia stated that startup’s are companies or ventures that are focused on a product or service that the new venture wants to bring to market. (Fontinelle, 2020) Also, Lappalainen, 2019, defined in an article published in Talouselämä, a startup to be a young enterprise which business model would able a fast, global growth, one that invests on product development and new market areas as soon as the product-market fit has been proven.
In statistics, the definition of a startup is much more defined and stricter but still varies from source to source. In their study, on growth factors and bottlenecks for business startups, the Finnish Prime Minister’s Office developed a statistical definition for a startup to be a small and young enterprise, which is independent; privately owned and has all basic juridic characteristics for growth including being able to operate and employ. This definition draws startups to be new, and less than five years old, not over than 49 employees, and a limited company that is in the employer register, not owned by a parent company, state or city. Using this statistical define, they concluded that amount five per cent of Finnish enterprises match this definition. (Startup-yritysten kasvun ajurit ja pullonkaulat, 2016, 19)
Most sources draw a line of the startup’s age to around five years old, but according to Graham, five years is still a reasonable age for a startup, whereas ten years would be a stretch. Usually, the company cannot stay as a startup for a longer period of time, and instead becomes a stable, non-growth seeking enterprise or has grown profitable and big enough to qualify more as a scale-up. (Graham, 2012)
2.1 Early Startup Development Phases
A journey of a startup starts with discovery. Someone somewhere makes a discovery, and a business idea is born. The idea alone does not make a business, yet as the future entrepreneur has first to make a decision to pursue entrepreneurship. This stage has been defined as the first one in multiple sources as the discovery stage, where the entrepreneurial intention is set. After the intention has been set and the idea found, can the entrepreneurial ideas be put to action. (Gelderen et al. 2003, 3-5; Global Startup Ecosystem Report, 2019, 19; Startup Genome, 2020; Halme et al., 13, 2015)
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The second stage in startup development is wrapped around finding problem-solution fit. In this stage, research is done, and the business idea is developed further, and the problem- solution fit is defined, but the business is not started yet. This idea validation and development-stage have no defined framework, and all sources vary on content and naming.
This stage is on development and research are done before the founding of the company, and therefore, stages named validation and development can follow in other parts as well. Usually, at this stage, also, the founding team is gathered. The development is usually done around the business model, strategy and concept of a product or service, and it's testing. In this formation stage seen in figure 1, startup founders define their mission, idea and form the essential founding team. (Startup Genome, 2020; Global startup ecosystem report, 2019, 19; Halme et al., 13, 2015; Gelderen et al. 2003, 3-5)
Figure 1 (Startup Commons, 2020)
On figure 1, the startup development phases map by Startup Commons, these two stages above are grouped as the formation stage, where the basic principle questions, what, and to whom, why and how, about the new venture are answered. After the formation, becomes the validation phase. In this phase, the company is usually founded; the core team is set and committed to moving forward. (Startup Commons, 2020)
After founding, commonly follows the product-market fit or validation, where the main goal is to find the early adaptors and customers willing to pay for your product and develop the product to serve better said, customers. The product-market fit is then confirmed with actual data and metrics from the real customers and real products to see if it fits the market. If the product or service fails to validate itself, the startup then needs to pivot, and modify their
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business model, product or target market and try again. (Global Startup Ecosystem Report, 2019, 19; Startup Commons, 2020)
This phase is sometimes also called the valley of death, as it seems to be the downfall and stage in which most of the startups fail. The opinions why this happens differ, but one approach by Steve Blank, explains that failing to meet customers leads to other reasons for startup failure. (Blank, 2006, 4) These reasons are explored more in chapter 2.3. Surviving the Death Valley and financing the growth phase of a company is a key challenge for growth entrepreneurship, which is often highlighted for innovative companies. (Korkeakoulupohjaisen Yrittäjyyden Edistäminen, 2009, 53) The Valley of Death is the most commonly mentioned, and it might just be the most defined stage in the development cycle of a startup (Salamzadeh & Kesim, 2015)
Development of a startup is nowhere near a straight line and is much more of a chaotic process. According to Tsai & Lan (2020), startups tend to grow in leaps. The future cannot be predicted, and even the smallest change could make the biggest impact in the future. (Tsai & Lan, 2020, 18)
2.2 Finnish Startup Ecosystem
The startup ecosystem generally births growth-seeking entrepreneurship and startups. In practice, startups ecosystems consist of both current entrepreneurs as well as future entrepreneurs and are formed around people, startups and different kinds of supporting organizations from public service providers to universities and accelerator programs and co- working spaces. All this includes that the successful entrepreneurs stay in the ecosystem and new ventures leverage of their mentoring and angel investments if they don’t set up new growth companies. A culture of unity and inclusion, the sharing of knowledge, experience and expertise and a positive attitude towards failure are also typical features of successful startup ecosystems (Startup-yritysten kasvun ajurit ja pullonkaulat, 2016, 76-77; Startup Ecosystem White Paper, 2020)
The Finnish startup ecosystem mostly resides in the greater Helsinki region, event that smaller startup ecosystems side on almost every bigger university city. An evaluation published by the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy it is estimated that around 4000 startups begin their operations each year in Finland, 42% of which are based on the greater Helsinki region. 300 to 400 of these startups are so-called gazelles, which succeed in significant growth in just a few years. (Halme et al. 2015, 20-22) Greater Helsinki also ranks best in the world in local connectedness among founders, investors and experts and as fourth in an emerging ecosystem ranking in 2020. (Global Startup Ecosystem Report, 2020, 43)
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According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report on Finland from 2015, Finns recognize good business opportunities in their environment as well as Europeans on average, but less than our neighbouring countries Estonia, 51% or Sweden, 70%. (Suomalainen et al., 2015, 3-5) As expected, the startup ecosystem is much bigger and has more value in Sweden, were the startup ecosystem around Stockholm is valued over 44B USD. (Global Startup Ecosystem Report, 2020, 161)
One ranking used on evaluating startup ecosystems are the Unicorns it helps to create. Reaching a valuation of one billion USD is the dream of all startups, but the chances of success are extremely slim. GB Insights (2015) states that only 1% of the founded and funded companies have potential to become so-called a unicorn company of valuation more than 1 Billion USD. In Europe, where only 0.07 per cent of all venture-backed companies make it to their unicorn valuation, the changes are even slimmer. (Trajkovska, 2019) Europe is now a home for 205 unicorns which is a huge increase compared to 2010 when Europe had only 22 unicorn companies. (INDEX Ventures, 2020, 6) Finland is home to at least three unicorn startups, and one of them, gaming company Supercell, became the first European technology startup to reach an estimated value of over 10 billion USD in 2016. (Guide to Nordic Innovation, 2020, 16; Wasteson, 2019)
Even that the chances of creating a successful startup or even the next unicorn company are extremely low, the startup ecosystem has grown globally radically in past few years and in 2020 is estimated to be around 3 Trillion. In 2020, the Greater Helsinki region startup ecosystem has a value of 5.8B USD, which is about half of the global ecosystem average valuation. This is a 2.4 B increase for the year 2019. (Global Startup Ecosystem Report,2019, 115; Global Startup Ecosystem Report, 2020, 43)
In Finland the year 2019 was record-breaking in many ways; it brought a new high in the investments made in the local startup ecosystem, totalling 511 million euros invested into 415 different companies, which is over four times much as ten years ago. Also, the funds collected to venture funds reached its all-time high in 2019, with 384 M Euros, that will be invested back to startups in upcoming years. (FiBAN, 2020, 2019; 2019 Pääomasijoittaminen Suomessa, 2020)
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2.3 Why startups fail
According to multiple sources, it is significantly more likely to startup to fail than succeed and is estimated that 90% of all startups fail, depending on the type of selection used. (GB Insights, 2020; Failory, 2020) According to Global Startup Ecosystem Report (2019) failure rate for startup companies is even as higher, with only one out of twelve making it. Even that the global rates for failure are high, Finnish startups seem a little bit more resilient, as 80% of the Finnish startups make it to the three-year mark and 70% to the five-year mark. (Startup- yritysten kasvun ajurit ja pullonkaulat, 2016, 23)
The success and failure factors of a business venture have been under scrutiny and research for centuries in business history and business management. It is good to keep in mind that even that company is up and running, it might not turn in a profit, and it is quite normal that early-stage startup does not turn in income. Lack of profit becomes a problem only in the long run if turnover does not grow as expected. (Lappalainen, 2020) For example, the Finnish food-delivery startup Wolt, which recently gained its unicorn status, has funnelled their profits and gained investments to a drastic expansion to new markets. Wolt currently operates in over 100 different cities but has not yet turned in a profitable year in its six years of business actions, despite having turnover of 87,4 million euros. (Wolt, 2020; Asiakastieto, 2020) Out of 334 eight venture-backed Finnish startups that have received more than 0.5 million of funding, only one out of eight startups were profitable, but only 3% were no longer operational. (Lappalainen, 2020)
GB Insights has been tracking post-mortem data and publishing updates on their gathered data of the failed business since 2014. On their first update of 2020, published in January, they have interviewed in a total of 339 failed companies. Based on this data GB Insights has listed the top 20 reasons why startups fail. It is important to note that most of this data considers of startups that have successfully raised funding and have been successful to run for at least a couple years. It is hard to collect data from earlier stage startup companies, as those that have not been raised funding or grown, there is very little data differentiating those companies from “normal” non-growth seeking companies that started and failed. (GB Insights, 2020)
No market need, as listed on the number one reason for startup failure is noted to be the reason for 42% of the cases. This means that these startups failed to make sure that their product or service fits the market, and customers are willing to pay for it. On his blog in 2006, co-founder of the Y-combinator Paul Graham breaks down several reasons why startups fail to produce a service or product that users want to buy while naming “not making something users want” as the main and only reason why startups fail. According to him, lack of diversity in the team, too marginal niche, derivative idea or obstinacy can play into factors
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why startups fail to meet the market need. In support of this, Steve Blank (2006), states that how failing ventures almost always fail because lack of customers, either because no market need, the product does not serve customers or failing to find the right target audience. (GB Insights, 2020; Graham, 2006; Blank, 2006, 4)
The second most common reason for failure was running out of cash, as high as 29%. Running out of cash is not a reason just by itself, and it is important to realize the reasons what led to running out of money. Usually, running out of cash is tied to not finding customers, or a profitable business model, having a too costly structure or failing to find product-market fit or failure pivoting. (GB Insights, 2020) Okrah et al. (2018) conclude that financing has a strong correlation with innovation and success of most startups. Lack of cash and funding is an obstacle to many, and it is mentioned to be the biggest obstacle to especially growth- seeking new companies in Finland. (Startup-yritysten kasvun ajurit ja pullonkaulat, 2016, 37)
The third factor in startup failure is the wrong team on GB insights’ research per cent in 23% of the post-mortem cases. Other sources state that team might be behind 60% of the cases of startup failure (Mol, 2019) and that problems in the founding team easily effect on the other problems that might lead to early failure of the startup. (Klotz et al., 2014, 249) The team is often contributed in startups success and according to Eisenhardt (2013) especially large and diverse teams that have worked together before are more likely to succeed, and this is emphasized if the product or service is launched to already competed for the market. (Eisenhardt, 2013, 805)
Some other reasons for startup failure collected by the GB insights study are either management and development themed; failure to pivot or a pivot has gone wrong, the startup faced legal challenges or got out-competed, or the issues were team-related; lack of passion in the team, burnout or disharmony among team or investors, lack of investors or lost focus or product-market fit related; mistimed product, a product without a business model, user un-friendly product. Other reasons listed are, for example, failed geographical expansion, failed marketing or pricing or cost-related issues. (GB Insights, 2020)
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3 Supporting Entrepreneurship in Institutes of Higher Education
Entrepreneurship in academia has its roots going back to the late 1930s and 1940s. Applied Entrepreneurial education was first implemented in Japan in the late 1930s. (Dana, 1992) And in 1940s Professor Myles Mace started teaching a new entrepreneurial course on management of new enterprises in Harvard Business School. (The Harvard Gazette, 2000) Entrepreneurial education has since then come a long way, becoming much more universal in the 80s and 90s and since then the governmental interest and support have led to the implementation of entrepreneurial education and programs in institutes of higher education. (Matt & Schaeffer, 2018, 13)
Entrepreneurial education has been one of the fastest-growing education themes in the European Union, as it is one of the strategies to create more growth, jobs and entrepreneurship to its member countries. Entrepreneurial education should be not confused with general business or economic studies, but viewed as its own, focusing on promoting entrepreneurial attitudes, helping students recognize business opportunities and foster creativity and innovation. (Entrepreneurship Education: A road to success, 2015, 7; Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, Especially in Non-Business Studies, 2008, 10) Partly due to increased focus on entrepreneurial education, both general entrepreneurial competences and the entrepreneurial potential of young and highly educated people have developed positively in Finland over the past decade. In addition, many educated people are so-called, untapped entrepreneurial potential - they identify business opportunities and have entrepreneurial skills, but they do not act as entrepreneurs. (Suomalainen et al., 2015, 3-5; Korkeakoulupohjaisen Yrittäjyyden Edistäminen, 2009, 46)
Entrepreneurial education is commonly divided into two or three sections, and it is not limited to students starting new ventures. In most cases, beliefs and attitudes towards entrepreneurship are the starting point for entrepreneurial education. (Entrepreneurship Education in Europe, 2006, 5) The joint recommendations for entrepreneurial education, focus on three main themes: entrepreneurial attitude and skills, new entrepreneurship, renewing entrepreneurship models. (Korkeakoulujen Yrittäjyyssuositukset, 2018, 3) The starting point is said to be waking up the want in a student to become an entrepreneur and then providing needed recourses and education that they need to start a business and helping students to found new business ventures and incubating said business. Entrepreneurial education is, therefore, both teaching about entrepreneurship as well as teaching and helping students how to become one and succeed in running a new venture. However, there is not a common agreement on what entrepreneurial education includes and what it doesn't. (Lilischkis et al., 2015, 36; Korkeakoulujen Yrittäjyyssuositukset, 2018, 3; Kirby, 2004; Hassan, 2020)
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Positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship are the first stages of entrepreneurial education. It is not only beneficial to new ventures and innovation, but it helps students turn their ideas into action while helping them to be more creative and self-confident on what they do. Entrepreneurial education therefore also promotes the development of personal attributes and skills that are beneficial to entrepreneurship like leadership, business management, creativity, responsibility and taking the initiative as well as promoting the option to become an employer instead of employee and building the entrepreneurial spirit. (Entrepreneurship Education in Europe, 2006, 5; Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, Especially in Non- Business Studies, 2008,11-12, Fernández et al., 2015, 6)
Entrepreneurial education is proven to work; student participating in entrepreneurial education and actions during their studies are more likely to start their own companies and be more successful and innovative than their peers. Students involved in entrepreneurial education are also at a lower risk of being unemployed, have better jobs and make more money. On top of this, there is proof that entrepreneurial education also has a positive impact on educational institutions, the economy and society. More and better conditions that universities offer to their student in practical training, business skills or incubation of new ventures and business ideas, more graduates end up becoming entrepreneurs in future (Yrittäjyyden Tukemisen Hyvät Käytänteet Korkeakouluissa, 2016, 8; Entrepreneurship Education: A road to success, 2015, 7)
Finnish ministry of education recognizes two waves on the entrepreneurial education development in Finland, first starting in the 90s and still on continuing as university-led entrepreneurship courses and other activities. The first wave would be best described as defining best practises to both entrepreneurial education and business founding. On the time of the publishing of the document, 2009 the group already recognized a second wave, identified by entrepreneurial education, support for business founding based on best practices, systematic promotion for entrepreneurship & startup entrepreneurship, and the commercialization of higher education know-how as a starting point for business and as a catalyst for business growth. (Korkeakoulupohjaisen Yrittäjyyden Edistäminen, 2009,10)
Universities and other institutes of higher education have great entrepreneurial potential and can have an active role in local innovation development. In constantly changing society and today's knowledge-led economy, they have a substantial role in using innovation to their advantage, foster a great amount of creativity and know-how, which can be used to generate new ventures. But without functioning entrepreneurial ecosystems, information produced or learned in universities will not generate new business. (Frizzo et al., 2018, 3; Korkeakoulujen Yrittäjyyssuositukset, 2018; Matt & Schaeffer, 2018,12; Startup-yritysten kasvun ajurit ja pullonkaulat, 2016, 77)
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University-based entrepreneurship has long been part of the research and development activities of higher education institutions, from which, by this decade, a broader entity has developed: student entrepreneurship. A student entrepreneur can be defined more or less straightforwardly as a person who works during his or her studies as an entrepreneur, but student entrepreneurship is seen as a student-centred activity, where the responsibility has been given to the student entrepreneurship communities that students have developed themselves. (Opiskelijasta Yrittäjäksi, 2015, 6-8)
The phenomenon is related to university entrepreneurship education as well as entrepreneurship training, but also other entities. Student entrepreneurship is a broader phenomenon, including everything on the student's present and future entrepreneurship activities. This activity is much more than just studying entrepreneurship. It is student's participation in entrepreneurial communities, behavioural transformation, creating a positive college environment for entrepreneurship during the student's studies and their entrepreneurial intentions during their studies, entrepreneurship education by the school, entrepreneurship training and entrepreneurial networks. (Opiskelijasta yrittäjäksi, 2015, 6-8; Matt & Schaeffer, 2018, 14)
Student-led entrepreneurship society movement in Finland started in the late 2000s from three different sides. An event series, Yrittäjyystiistai: Entrepreneurship Tuesday started in Laurea University of Applied Sciences in spring 2008, which latter resulted on the founding of Laurea Entrepreneurship Society ry and its predecessor Helsinki Metropolitan Entrepreneurship Academy. The most prominent of the three, Aaltoes, founded in 2009 by students from Aalto University inspired on their visit to Sandford, and Arctic Startup - blog started on 2008, that have both since grown to the bigger ecosystem on their own. The student-led entrepreneurship movement spread fast. Currently, PRH registers 21 student-run entrepreneurship societies, which is a significant growth in the past five years (Leino, 2014; Opiskelijasta Yrittäjäksi, 2015, 6; Patentti- ja rekisterihallitus, 2020)
Entrepreneurship societies and their actions are recognized as part of the entrepreneurial education in those schools, of which they reside. Some of the schools also reported on financial or facility support for these student-led entrepreneurship organizations. (Yrittäjyyden Tukemisen Hyvät Käytänteet Korkeakouluissa, 2016, 9) These entrepreneurship societies, or more friendly called ES's, are usually student-led and bound to either a University or UAS campuses in the greater Helsinki area, for example, LaureaES and Metropoliaes, and so on, or to a city outside of the greater Helsinki region, combining entrepreneurial student community from multiple institutions of higher education, for example, Oulues or Boost Turku. (LaureaES, 2020, Metropoliaes, 2020, Oulues, 2020, Boost Turku, 2020)
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Business incubators and accelerators, well as wider entrepreneurial networks, have developed around these communities among those involved in these activities, and their impact is starting the show. Students part of these activities is almost four times more likely to see themselves as entrepreneurs in the future compared to the non-involved students. (Opiskelijasta Yrittäjäksi, 2016,6)
In Laurea UAS, entrepreneurship is one of the strategic focus points, and it shows clearly in the multiple entrepreneurial education course choices that Laurea offers. As the main point of Laurea entrepreneurship education selection is on the basics of entrepreneurship and self- employment, are startup entrepreneurship and its education left for their student partner, LaureaES to organize. LaureaES focuses both on the groundwork of entrepreneurship education by aiming to provide entrepreneurial inspiration, events and networks, and also providing incubator and accelerator programs for growth-seeking students. (Laurea 2020, LaureaES, 2020)
Both entrepreneurial programs organized by LaureaES, have constituted lot to the Laurea's entrepreneurial education and student entrepreneurs and their business. Already in 2016, international entrepreneurship camps like Cambridge Venture Camp had played a significant role in promoting Laurea's student entrepreneurship. The purpose of the business camps was to develop business ideas of the students in an entrepreneurial environment with coaches and mentors. Since 2007, around 270 students from different universities have taken part in the intensive camps in Cambridge. (Yrittäjyyden tukemisen hyvät käytänteet korkeakouluissa 2016, 63; Cambridge Venture Camp, 2020)
Incubator programs are nothing new to Laurea, as there have been multiple publicly funded incubator programs in past, as well as whole course selection focused on startup entrepreneurship, which has all either run out of funding, failed to attract sustainable amount Laurea students or discontinued to run for other reasons. At least two incubators were identified; Social and healthcare sector incubator program started already in 1996 aimed towards helping more social and healthcare sector professionals startup business ventures. The program worked in collaboration with local organizations and cities and was only loosely aimed for Laurea students or alumnus. (Saurio, 2003, 88-89; Sekki & Kilpelä, 2020)
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3.1 Incubation
Deutschmann (2007) defines business incubation as an instrument of fostering new venture formation. Most business incubators are aimed at companies immediately after founding or to ones that are not yet fully developed or viable on their own. (Deutschmann, 2007, 3–4)
Definitions of business incubation vary from source to source, but most agree on basic characteristics; Incubator can be both physical space, organization or a program, both operating under the same principle; taking in business ventures and projects that are not yet fully developed into a business and help them turn into viable companies. (Deutschmann, 2007, 3-4; Kirby, 2004, Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005, 111; Fernández et al., 2015, 2-3) The International Business Incubation Association also recognizes that incubators can host events to provide networking and learning opportunities and that there are usually some criteria set up the incubator for their member companies. (InBIA, 2017, 1)
Grimaldi a& Grandi (2005) identified four different types of incubators, Business Innovation Centres, University Business Incubators, Independent Private Incubators, and Corporate Private Incubators as well as and two business models for them, non-profit and for-profit incubators. Deutschmann (2007) also recognizes university pre-incubators, an incubator program that operates on the pre-founding stage instead of serving already founded business. According to Hannon (2004), accelerators are the stage of the highest intensity of business incubation, and they tend to serve more established and high-growth companies. Also, Grimaldi & Grandi (205), recognize term accelerator but refer it to as an independent private incubator, which usually does not take part in helping ventures at the business concept phase, but helps companies after launch on the specific needs, shares their know-how and potential capital or to the new ventures to reach a higher level of growth.
Therefore, definitions of business incubation and its stages vary in detail but agree in some basic characteristics. A business incubator’s main goal is to produce successful firms that will leave the program financially viable and prepared to face the market, but how the outcome is accomplished varies from program and country to other. According to Al-Mubaraki et al. (2013), this is best seen as differences between incubators in developed countries, focusing on high-tech, and incubators in developing countries, as the economic market has different requirements.
The roots of a business incubation go back to the end 1950s in New York, (Hannon, 2004, 274), and even though the spread of incubators was very slow up to 1990s after the 90s incubators have spread widely across the, in forms of different incubator programs and with integrations to universities. During the 21st century, the concept of incubation has evolved as the society we live in did. The most notable change in incubation methodology has happened along with the IT revolution in the 90s, as so-called internet age came with easier access to
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the market, networks and capital. This is most visible in the incubator programs offer, as the initial objective of business incubation was to reduce costs for starting companies by offering facility services and the offering was changed to satisfying needs of new ventures with networks, coaching, education, and other learning services. (Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005, 113)
According to Robles, (2017, 13), about one-third of business incubators are working with or housed by universities and institutions of higher education and that connection is essential as universities are usually seen as hubs of knowledge and research. Voisey, Jones &Thomas, (2013, 350) states that more than 90% of incubators are either non-profit and rely on direct funding from institutions of higher education or other sponsors. Collaboration between universities and incubators benefits all parties involved, giving universities a process to capitalize their innovations, students change to incubate their business ideas and incubators more human capital skills. With teaching elements of entrepreneurial education, university linked incubators can act as a tool to promote entrepreneurship and can lead to entrepreneurial activity. (Fernandez et al, 2015, 4-5; Voisey, Jones & Thomas, 2013, 352; Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005,118-119; Hassan, 2020)
University linked business incubation is still fairly young as the oldest university incubation program was founded in 1983. (Meyer, 2017, 22) According to Saurio (2003), the first wave of incubator programs started in Finland already in 1987-88, mostly in trial bases, and after Finland joined EU, the second wave emerged and left 86 incubator programs standing. A big majority of the programs were embedded into bigger organizations or processes like universities, technology or science parks or part of regional development organizations. (Saurio 2003, 13-14)
Business incubation has been proven to help new ventures become more successful, and to boost growth and rate of survivability of the member companies. (Kirby, 2004) Incubators are also proven to support multiple economic goals like creating more jobs and wealth, promoting innovation and economic growth. (Meyer, 2017, 32 -34; Al-Mubaraki et al., 2013, 114) Companies involved in incubator or accelerator actives are not only more likely to have flat structures and embrace the fail-fast-culture that is common for startups but also be more likely to be more growth-minded and grow faster compared to non-incubated companies. (Startup-yritysten kasvun ajurit ja pullonkaulat, 2016, 116-117) According to Hannon (2004, 282), incubator programs also increase the quality of product-output, reduce the time to market and generate business more stable to stand in uncertain conditions.
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3.2 Pre-Incubation
The first pre-incubator started its actions in Germany in 1997 in University or Bielefeld, as a new concept to tackle the lack of knowledge that prevented commercialization of innovative ideas that universities created. The unique new structure allowed students and researchers to test their ideas and gain valuable business knowledge before venturing to real business life. Even that incubator programs in universities had been organized before, the pre-incubator organized in Germany is still recognized as the first instance of a recorded pre-incubator. (Wirsing et al., 2002, 265.)
Pre-incubator can also be defined as a program or entity that’s goal is to help form new business ventures or teams by bringing together people, knowledge and recourses. More often than not pre-incubators work along with a site with universities or other educational facilities, offering these programs either as longer courses or series of short-term events. In 2016, there was 26 startup labs or pre-incubators in Finland, but it was noted that the numbers presented are uncertainties in these figures, as it is challenging to identify the organizations or their type and different types of services without further mapping or interviewing. (Startup-yritysten kasvun ajurit ja pullonkaulat, 2016, 76-77)
If business incubation is more nurturing to the ventures, pre-incubators are aimed at more of an embryonic stage, before founding. This helps potential entrepreneurs encounter multiple obstacles that they might otherwise have, like lack of know-how or experience of managing a company, lack of networks and the big financial risks associated with startup ventures, that can be avoided if the idea can be tested before founding. (Kirby, 2004; Wirsing et al., 2002, 266)
The main difference between pre-incubator and business incubator is the stage of the business ventures they target. (Deutschmann, 2007, 3) An ideal composition, a pre-incubator would offer a place to work, mentoring and guidance for the pre-incubator attendees develop their business concepts, prototypes, find team members and to develop their business venture so far that it would be ready to enter the market. (Kirby, 2004) Pre-incubator does not only help students start a business, but also prepare them to learn necessary entrepreneurial skills and knowledge on running and developing their business-related topics like finances, human resource or marketing, along with and as part of their studies. Inclusion of pre-incubator activities to student’s studies and curriculum is seen as a vital part of university pre-incubator activities. (Wirsing et al., 2002, 274-275)
Pre-incubators in higher education can be part of the entrepreneurial learning process and differing from entrepreneurial education as pre-incubators target those who are already ready to become entrepreneurs and offer students a possibility to test their business ideas with less or none risk and without having a registered company. Pre-incubators are usually
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free, which, according to Deutschmann (2007, 4) makes logical sense, as companies pre- founding have no profit or income.
Kepenek & Eser (2016) identified four main characteristics of pre-incubators. A targeted process that helps the program attendee to develop their idea, business plan, and needed skills, and needed services like internet access or office space. Pre-incubators would also have a selection criteria’s; a selection process can be seen as risk-reducing for the pre- incubator, as the funding of the program might be depended on the successfully incubated cases, not on the number of tested ideas. Also, the time spent in pre-incubator is limited, even though it might vary from a couple of months to several years, depending on the field of business, and the culture and operation practices of the incubator. Lastly, being associated strongly with universities or other entities. (Kepenek & Eser, 2016, 11-12, 16-17)
Kirby, 2004, states that pre-incubator relates to the overall activities needed to support the potential entrepreneur in developing the business to boost the chances to arrive at a successful startup creation and test the market. Pre-incubator tries to ensure that after a successful pre-incubation and when the company is founded, the company would have all the needed capabilities for basic business survival by avoiding the risk of the new company failing due to poor background work or lack of know-how. (Kepenek & Eser, 2016, 9)
4 Research & development methods used in the thesis
Research and development methods used in the thesis consist of Service Design principles and Double Diamond – service design tool. Methods and data used in the Double Diamond are further explained in the following chapters.
4.1 Service Design Principles and Double Diamond
Service design means using design principles and ways of design thinking processes and methods to develop a service. It is not just filing down visual details and making them look prettier, as it can also be implemented to all aspects and levels of the service and business- like in companies’ strategy, business model, process, or to bettering customer contacts. Service design aims to optimize customer contacts, service and experience and helps organizations see their services from the customers’ point of view. According to Stickdorn (2018, 20-22), service design is also a mindset process and a toolset as well as a management approach and more. The key feature in all definitions is a user-centric approach. (Ojasalo et al., 2015, 71 – 75, Stickdorn, 2018, 17 - 22)
The service design method used in this thesis is Double Diamond, which uses divergent and convergent thinking on its four main points of the process. Divergent thinking is a mindset of
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exploring and creating ideas without limitations and marking them all down without thinking if the idea is not realistic or doable. Convergent thinking, therefore, is an almost completely opposite mindset and way of thinking as its main point is to w find the essential points from the data and ideas collected in the divergent thinking process. Convergent thinking selects the data points and ideas which are most important, doable or the real problems. Switching between these ways of thinking might be hard for some, as usually, people tend to naturally follow one or the other method. These two ways of thinking alternate in the Double Diamond process. The methodology is developed by the British Design Council. (Ojasalo et al., 2015, 71– 75; Stickdorn, 2018, 313; Design Councill, 2015)
Double Diamond
Discover Define Develop Deliver
Figure 2 (Design Council, 2020)
As can be seen from figure 1 above, the double diamond service design method consists of four phases of the process; discover, define, develop and deliver. These phases alternate divergent and convergent thinking and can be easily looped. The discover-part of the process focuses on collecting as much data about possible problems as it’s possible, without any limitations, and uses methods like research, surveys, interviews, observations and analysis to draw as many data points as possible. The define phase takes to collect that data, analyses it, picks up what is essential and defines a problem or multiple problems, that are worth solving.
Discovery and define part of the process usually takes to most time and rightfully so, as in it is highlighted a deep customer understanding, data collection and defining. After defining a problem or multiple problems in a process, in the Develop phase develops the selected problems, and moves forward with them. Developing happens in sprints, workshops or meetings, can use methods like brainstorming, prototyping or service blueprints. Deliver phase deliverers the developed process, project or service and tests it for the next iteration of the process. Double diamond is easily applied to most projects as it follows the standard way of project workflow. (Ojasalo et al., 2015, 71–75; Design Council, 2015)
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4.2 Data and methods used for the development double diamond process
While viewing the development process, it is important to note that the planning of the next Hatch Incubator Program (latter: program) starts almost immediately after the previous one ends. Usually almost right after the program ends and the feedback from the attendees is collected the organizing team meetings and goes over their own reflections and observations from the program, both good and bad as well as the feedback from the attendees and discusses and brainstorms the development of the program and if the changes made for the just-finished program should be kept. The actual development program happened during the spring of the same year that the next program is organized. The program is always organized during the fall semester, and the project also includes the development and planning period as well as a marketing and application period from the start of a university semester, an interview period and the actual program mainly during October and November lasting from 8 to 9 weeks. The development process included in this thesis focuses mainly on the development of the program and factors that enabled bettering it.
The data used in the development process of the thesis includes feedback data from each year, team meeting memos and personal notes and observations from the author of the thesis, as the founder and program’s project manager in 2017 and 2018 and as a program development lead in 2019.
The feedback surveys were distributed online with both quantitative and qualitative questions, asking attendees anonymously rate the program, give a rating to different workshops as well as open-ended questions, development suggestions and open feedback. On the feedback surveys, 2017 the attendees filled in one feedback survey, 2018 attendees filled in two surveys, one in the beginning and one after the graduated, in 2019 attendees filled in weekly feedback surveys and the same was planned for 2020. Even that not mentioned in the official development process, it was noted that filling in the feedback after the program only lowered the quality of the feedback from the earliest weeks and therefore weekly feedback collecting was implemented. After the pilot year, the attendees were also required to fill out starting survey where they made a self-evaluation on their confidence and skills of certain subjects, which they then answered again on the feedback survey, so that conclusive progress data good be drawn from their self-evaluations. This was included as part of the surveys mentioned above.
Team meeting memos included results of interviews, research, and methods like reflection and brainstorming as well as team members observations done during the program. Team members observed the program and its attendees during the program’s execution by asking them questions, feedback, and observing their mood, excitement and other factors that might be telling whether or not the workshop was beneficial for the attendee. The team
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memos also include interviews of the previous attendees when they joined the organizing team for the next year after their graduation from the program.
The double diamond process pictured in this thesis was run three times and can be seen in figure 2. The following diagram visualizes the development process of Hatch Incubator Program as the Double Diamond method was repeated after each year.
Hatch Incubator Program 2017 Discover Define Deliver (Octber &November Develop 2017)
Hatch Incubator Program 2018 Discover Define Develop Deliver (October & Novembe 2018)
Hatch Incubator Program 2019 Discover Define Develop Deliver (October - December 2019)
Figure 3
All parts of the process happened in meetings with the organizing team. Discovering was done bases on the collected data and defining the main problems was done within the organizational team of that year, led by the author the thesis in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, the process was led by the program manager of that year, as the author of the thesis acted more as a mentor for the team. The development process happened in team meetings, and the plans on delivery of the process were also decided with in the team.
The expected results from each of the phases are described in the following chapter. On the discovery phase, it is expected, that critical issues and elements in the program or its organization that need development will surface as well as general ideas that would complement the program and make it better. On the define phase, it is expected that from the points and ideas surfaced from the previous phase, there as 2 – 5 main points for development chosen to move forward with. As the process revenues itself only once a year, it is expected that there are multiple development points each year. The program’s development would not be fast enough if only one of the problems were tackled. On the development phase, it is expected that the team develops each of these programs with methods like benchmarking to deliver a better alternative for the following year. The deliver phase is expected to deliver a plan for the following program. As the organization of the program mainly relays on the ways of event management is expected that not everything will
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go as planned, and some issues will differ, be organized differs, added or left out from the program. A description of the realized program is included at the beginning of each result chapter to lay the ground for the next iteration of the development cycle.
There were elements that have stayed the same during the whole program’s existent, even that the delivery method might have been developed each year. There has always been some kind of a price for the so-called winner, who is selected on the final showcase-pitching competition with companied points from external judges, as well as points from progress and participation among other factors, given by the organizing team. The interview and application process also stayed the same. Applicants were asked to summarize their business idea and fill in other relevant information on the application. Applications were then processed by the team, interview invitations sent, and selections made after the interviews. The customer journey for the applicant or selected attendee stayed mainly the same every year, and only minor changes were made to, for example to email templates, visual brand and in 2020, the new website.
5 Results
Each iteration of the double diamond process brought multiple development points and results that contributed to the successful program and its basic characteristics. The program increased its quality each year, but biggest development was made in the first two iterations of the double diamond process.
Multiple success factors were defined, including a switch in the short- and long-term goals of the program and focal point of founder’s entrepreneurial skills instead of the development of the business served the program and its target group better. As the result, the program is capable of scaling its operations to serve more specific fields of pre-startups or more development stages of new ventures.
5.1 Improvements after a successful pilot year
2017 was the first year that the program was organized, so there was no previous data, only a few hypotheses about the programs need, and impact set, by the organizational team. The main hypothesis was that the program would help its attendees to learn the necessary skills to start companies after the program. The program was planned for an entrepreneurial- minded student, that was looking for to start a business. During the first year, the team noticed that even the attendees were motivated to become entrepreneurs, they lacked the basic knowledge about entrepreneurship. The programs main hypothesis of student-friendly entrepreneurship program was therefore validated.
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It is good to note that the program aimed at business idea development and the first and second phases of startup development, discovery and concept creation, instead of the steps to business founding, paperwork and technicalities as there were already lots of information and services available for starting a business ID. The program also claimed its spot on the student’s entrepreneurial journey, as offering student’s incubator-level help fitted in very well with the then-current offering of LaureaES. The other program, Cambridge Venture Camp, is an accelerator program and targeted student entrepreneurs just after business founding, with its goal on the number of business ID’s created during or immediately after the program and enabling traction and client acquisition for already founded ventures.
The length of the program was one of the research questions set before the program, and the eight-week structure was deemed successful, as it gave enough time to business ideas really develop but not being too much on students on time commitment wise. The research question about the length was also part of the development process for the year 2019. The program had one main goal for its pilot year; help in increasing the number of student entrepreneurs and the number of business ID’s owned by students.
The program was founded and planned in the period of spring-fall 2017 and executed in October and November on the same year. The program lasted for eight weeks, and six teams were admitted to the first year of the program. The group size was kept purposely small to give a more personal approach for the teams and to gain a good understanding of the program’s pros and cons to the organization hosting it. The program included workshops and optional activities like networking events in the Helsinki startup ecosystem. The following topics were implemented into the program; pitching, branding and marketing, finances for new businesses, minimum viable product and building a product, among others.
On the feedback data one of the attendees expressed, that event that the content of the workshops was good, they would have liked to see for that little bit more personal touch as the workshops were heavily focused on the business idea’s development only. One attendee pointed on their feedback the lack of but team spirit feeling among the attendees. They also mentioned that if you didn’t participate in the extracurricular activities offered during the program, you really did not have time just network with your peers. Even that the feedback was mainly positive, it was wished that a little bit more time during the program could have been used to teach pitching, as one of the attendees felt that been there more support and pitching practises, their overall performance had been better in the pitching showcase event at the end of the program.
On the team meeting, memos to following problems and development points that were mentioned on the feedback gathered from the attendees. The team also noticed the lack of the team spirit and networking among the attendees, event that efforts were made to ensure
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that. The team observed that the most liked workshop was the one that also included the entrepreneur’s personal development as a founder,
On teams’ observations, it was noted that as the main focus of the first year was so strongly on the idea and its developed, it backfired. One of the attendees came to a realization that their business idea would not work in mid-way through the program and therefore dropped out of the program without informing the team, which would not have happened if the focus was more on the skills and tools than in the push to get attendees to start up phase of their business. The program alumni that joined the organizing team later after their graduation from the program also pointed out that the needed shift in the main focus and short-term goals.
Other observations that the team made were as follows; more time could be used on pitching as well as on the personal mentoring of the attendees, and the main focus and goal of the program should be more on the development of the attendee’s entrepreneurial skills as a business founder, rather than just on the development of their business ideas. On the personal note of the programs project manager, it was written down that personal development of the attendees could be implemented to the program more, and program short- and long-term goals should be modified to fit.
The following aspects of development were chosen.
• Shifting the main focus of the program from the business idea development to the founder’s personal entrepreneurship development on top of the business idea development.
• The programs mission, target group, short- and long-term goals needed defining
• There was an immediate need for more community feeling, networking and teaming up among attendees
• The collaboration between the partner schools was not at as good of a level as it could have been. Being able to promise attendees study credits for graduation from the program would give credibility to the program and allow more students to take part as the time spent in the program would help their studies.
The first problem data team tackled was the program’s target group. The team met with the university’s representatives and negotiated organization of study credits for those who attended the program and graduated from it. The team also did user research of their target group and defined the program to be aimed at the University of Applied Sciences students from three different schools. The said schools were already working very closely together on
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their offering of entrepreneurial studies, and the team wanted to ensure that the attendees participating in the program had diversity among them. To enable better stakeholder communication and partnership with the universities in the future, there was a starting survey added to the program so real results and the progress that the attendees had done during the program could be measured.
Hatch Incubator Program’s mission and goals were developed in multiple workshops by the team. The team noted that the program’s main mission should aim more on giving attendees the right tools and knowledge to start up new innovative ventures or so-called startups without having the main focus being in starting them. After the clarification of the mission, the first year’s goal for Hatch Incubator Program, increasing the number of business ID’s among students, was no considered as a short-term goal for the program. Increasing the number of student entrepreneurs and the amount of new venture creation became one of the long-term goals for the program. A short-term goal, and purpose for Hatch Incubator Program in 2018 and onwards was to enable attendees to gain needed knowledge about idea validation and their next steps in venture creation if they chose to continue with their idea after graduation. This approach would allow more room for testing and modifying business ideas or even coming up with new ones during the program, without it interfering with the programs short-time goal or attendees capability to attend to it.
The team noted that there was more need for a pre-incubator program, that would teach to the students how to become a successful entrepreneur in the future rather than a program that helps students to start up new companies and only focus on the development of their business ideas. This approach was also validated by the fact that startups tend to fail more than succeed and odds for success of a young student starting up their first startup venture are very low. The main focus stage of a startup lifecycle that the program wanted to aim at was idea validation and problem-solution fit.
The team tackled next the lack of a team spirit among attendees. The team benchmarked another business idea development program organized in Turku; Startup Journey by Boost Turku. On the benchmarking and interviews with the program’s hosts, the team found out that the Startup Journey program starts with the boot camp; workshops in a more relaxed environment to give the attendees more time to get to know each other and form a team spirit among themselves. The boot camp also included a touchdown on subjects, that might not need their own workshop during the program but are important to mention during the program anyway.
The decision to add a boot camp weekend to Hatch Incubator Program enabled the team to tackle the other focus points of that’s years development goals as well. Shifting of the main focus of the program from the business idea development of the founder’s personal
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entrepreneurial development was now easier to implement to the content of the program without removing, deleting or replacing any of the programs already established workshops or making the program longer. The team decided on adding in more personal development workshops as well as mentoring and pitching coaching, of which personal development and pitching would be one of the main points touched down in the boot camp. One of the workshops was planned to be completely replaced, and it consists only mentoring to the attendees.
The Hatch Incubator Program in fall 2018 was planned to consist of eight weeks of the program, the boot camp included, where following topics would be included but not limited to; pitching practices, business models, personal development as an entrepreneur and the startup ecosystem. The workshops would cover topics like idea validation, pitching, minimum viable product and prototyping, team building, financial aspects for starting businesses, founder stories and excursions, networking and mentoring. As in the previous year, the program was planned to include one workshop a week for the remaining seven weeks and the final pitching competition/showcase or so-called demo day in the end.
5.2 From big changes to enabling scaling
The program in 2018 was executed as planned with one exception of the mentoring being divided into two parts. The program application was open for all students in 3UAS schools Laurea University of appliance Sciences, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. Seven teams for admitted to the program, five of which ended up graduating it.
In the feedback data submitted by the attendees, they had to self-evaluate their knowledge and confidence level on a scale from one to five, five being the highest, about topics covered in the program. In all of the measured topics, the group average went up with at least 0.5 increase, the highest increase being 1.2 points, when average increase what’s 0.8 points.
During the discovery, the feedback data gave lots of insights into the program’s success in the year 2018. Attendees rated that the program served their entrepreneurial needs and development 4.6 out of five and the whole experience of the program 4.8 out of five. The feedback was overall positive, while few concrete development aspects for brought up by the attendees. When asked about what they would add to the future program, attendees mentioned on their feedback for example that involvement of the alumni was very beneficial for them and it could be implemented more into the program in future. They also wished more connection between Hatch Incubator Program and LaureaES’s other events. The team concluded after the 2018 program that the change in short-term goals suited the program and its mission better, as the program is, in fact, a pre-incubator, not in full-grown incubator program and therefore an attendee founding a business during or right after the program was
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not a goal to pursue. On the program’s contents, one-on-one mentoring, as well as the workshop about teambuilding reserved most phrase among attendees. The team noted that more focus on mentoring could be added throughout the program.
The added boot camp and paid attention to networking and enabling teaming up among the attendees delivered immediate and visible results, and the boot camp received only good feedback on its contents and teambuilding exercises. Networking and the community feeling among attendees were mentioned positively multiple times in the feedback given by the attendees, and therefore it was concluded, that the added attention to teaming up the attendees as well as the boot camp were good additions to the program.
The closer partnership with the university and enabling the credits for the participation was also deemed as a success, as it enabled to attendees also to forward their studies while participating in the program and developing their business ideas. The extra focus on one-on- one mentoring also received only positive feedback. Hatch Incubator Programs mission as in pre-incubator and it’s added focus on idea validation and potential founder’s personal growth instead of a business start and brought clarity to both attendees and the organization behind Hatch Incubator, as it also now fitted better along with the events under programs that Laurea Entrepreneurship Society already had.
Team also pointed out that the selection criteria needed to be defined even more as along the previous change to the short- and long-term goals, it meant that the current selection criteria did not favour the desired target group. On the organizational side, the team noted that more communication between the team and to attendees was needed, as well more supporting material like print outs of the program and mentors. They also agreed that the program could be a little bit longer as they felt that the workshops were pretty packed during the 2018 program and could be spawned out a little bit to make the program more efficient learning experience. One of the feedback responses also suggested that the program ended too soon and could have lasted even longer, as they felt that there was much more to learn.
The team also observed confusion from the different universities and among their students as the program was still heavily branded with LaureaES, and discovered, that more clearly independent brand was needed, for Hatch Incubator to be viewed as neutral among students from other universities than Laurea. This led to almost all applicants in 2018 being students from Laurea University of Applied Sciences.
The defined problems and development points for the year 2019 program are as follows.
• Program selection criteria were not clear enough and should be defined more
• Length of the program might not be optimal
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• Communication between the organizing team and attendees lacked written instructions. The team noticed that even that details for passed over in communication channels multiple times, they still ended up answering the same questions over and over again.
• Hatch Incubator Programs individual brand was confusing the potential applicants
For the development of the 2019 program few of the previous alumni participated in the development of the program in the spring as part of the organizing team.
To tackle to individual brand and its development head-on, the team created separate social media marketing channel for Hatch Incubator Program, for it to be able to be viewed as a more neutral entity among 3UAS students and staff. The mission of the program, it’s contents and the timetable were planned to be visible more clearly at the site of the program for the potential applicants before and during the application period. The actual application and its process was viewed over and transferred to another platform to match with the brand.
To develop the communication between the organizing team and the attendees, the team planned and created even more templates and guidelines about the program, and it’s requirements and other information in external documentation to be distributed to the attendees before and during the program. In previous years, this communication had happened in the communication channels that were used during the program. To improve this, there was an added meeting as the first official event of the program, a breakfast get- together, which highlighted the program, its requirements, expectations for participants, and timetable among other commonly asked questions. It also provided more networking time for the attendees, as well as giving them a chance to get to know the team and ask questions, therefore enforcing transparency in the communication.
For the selection criteria and participant amount, the team benchmarked the other program run LaureaES, Cambridge Venture Camp and its selection criteria and interview records. The selection criteria were then modified to fit earlier startup development phase and pre- validation business ideas and first-time student entrepreneurs. Three main selection criteria were defined as well as priority order and some extra hoped qualities. At this point, the team also determined, that it would not matter if the applicant were a solo founder or in a team as Hatch Incubator Program was aimed to those validating their ideas and their willingness to learn was more important.
The criteria that the team developed was first to consider the applicants’ personal motivation to become an entrepreneur and then id their business idea was something innovative, or a new concept and a valid business case. The idea could then not have big legal or other issues or be completely copied from an already running business. On top of these criteria, there
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were some desired attributes defined. For example, but not limited to; the applicant already has a will to carry on with their idea during or after their studies, entrepreneurial and open- minded attitude and responsiveness to feedback; willingness to learn and to change their idea along the way. All of these hoped attributes were all identified as a key factor for the program success in the Cambridge Venture Camp. Participants willingness to carry the idea further speaks about their motivation to become an entrepreneur and attitude as well as willingness to learn and responsiveness to feedback were essential; they enable the attendee to enjoy the program and its contents more as receiving feedback is an essential part of the program. Along with the selection criteria, the internal interviewing organization was developed to be simpler, more straightforward and transparent as well as easier to organize.
The program in fall 2019 was planned to consist of the starting breakfast event, boot camp weekend, workshop a week for seven weeks, and the final’s week including rehearsals and the final pitching competition. The total length of the program’s activities would then be nine weeks, but the actual learning content and workshops would only take eight. The program was planned to include, but not limited to, the following: business model creation, pitching and presentation skills, idea validation and market research, MVP and piloting, entrepreneur mentality and self-development, and in addition to previous years even more personal mentoring and added a customer-centric or service design workshops to the program. The team concluded that with the recent development changes, the program had built up its foundations, it could now facilitate an even bigger number of attendees in upcoming years.
5.3 Checking the layout of a completed thesis
In order, the third Hatch Incubator Program was organized during fall 2019. The program lasted in a total of nine weeks including the finals week with a rehearsal and the demo day pitching event. 15 attendees in 11 teams were admitted to the program, with 13 attendees and ten teams graduating from it. Something the team had not foreseen what’s great applications from a few teams that already had a business ID, therefore making them a little bit too advanced to be ideal candidates for Hatch Incubator Program. These team had the business up and running but were lacking traction and some other aspects, that the team determined that Hatch Incubator Program could help them. Therefore, they were admitted to the program with a couple of exceptions. They ended up participating in the program as a normal attendee but could not compete against the other teams. The teams ended up being grouped as the advanced Hatch Incubator Program attendees, on their own track. This development does serve the future development expected for the program and laid ground for possible expansion to different tracks on the program in future.
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In the development 2019 to 2020, the author of the thesis acted as a mentor for the team and program attendees, only bringing in some development points herself. The development process pictured here, therefore differs from previous, as it is not lead by her.
Just like in 2018, attendees self-evaluated their knowledge and confidence level on a scale from one to five, five being the highest, about topics covered in the program. Just like the year before, in all of the measured topics, the group average went up with at least 0.4 increase, the highest increase being 1.2 points, when the average increase was 0.8 points. The highest increase happened into attendee’s confidence about starting their business, were the asked evaluations rose from 3.3 to 4.5 out of five. The given feedback was overall, only positive, and no major issues were mentioned. Attendees praised the feeling of community and belonging that was in the program as almost all of the feedback survey answers mentioned the group spirit and the atmosphere somehow. The highest-rated theme and workshop of the whole program were about team building and the importance of a startup team. This workshop earned an overall score of 4.9 out of five.
The attendees rated the program experience 9.2 out of 10. It is good to note, that the evaluation used in 2019 is not fully comparable to the evaluation of 2018, as a different scale was used. When asked how likely the attendees would recommend Hatch Incubator Program to their friends or fellow entrepreneurs on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being highest, the average of the group was 9.5.
On the team’s observations during the program, the team had noted that brand of the program could be even more separated from LaureaES, as the separate social media channel already up delivered good results and praise from the collaboration partners, but there was room for improvement. The team also noted that the number of teams in the batch 2019, was optimal and should not be exceeded as the logistics of organization would end up too complicated and too time-consuming. In order to keep the quality of the pitching competition and personal mentoring as high as possible, there should be no more than 12 teams participating in the program.
The team observed to advanced track teams accepted to the 2019 program and concluded that the experiment was successful. Both of the advanced teams participated in 2019 priced the program and concluded on their interviews later that participation to Hatch Incubator Program was very beneficial for them and their business ventures. The team noted the communication channels used between the attendees and the team could be improved, as well as the written info-packages, delivered to attendees and mentors involved.
The defined development aspects were concluded as follows.
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• The brand and its own social media channels should be more defined to ensure an individual brand outside of LaureaES
• The brand and the method on the written info packages could be unified more as a development for the personal touch of the program and its brand
• To advanced track should be kept but defined more on its purpose and benefit to the program
The team developed these issues during the spring and summer of 2020. As the development points more on the details rather than on big aspects of the program, the theme focused on enforcing the Hatch Incubator Program brand in both online and offline as well in the written instructions delivered to mentors, stakeholders and attendees. The team created more social media channels for the program and its own website separate from LaureaES, to ensure even more neutral brand two other partner schools. All the information about the program and its contents as well as the application was transferred to this site. On top of this, a new communication platform was introduced, making communication between attendees and team much easier, with the possibility to include personal mentoring between the workshops.
The program of the Hatch Incubator 2020 was planned to stay as much the same as it could be to 2019, as the team felt that the contents of 2019 were already optimal. The team also concluded that the option for advanced teams should be included on the future program, but not advertised, to keep the main target group and the majority of the applications in the idea validation stage. The team also felt that the advanced tracked laid ground for the future possibilities for different tracks in Hatch Incubator Program.
6 Analysis of the key results and proposals for future development
This thesis is a comprehensive case study of the development and factors of success of the Hatch Incubator Program, but it cannot universally be implemented to development or success factors for other pre-incubator programs. It is also good to note that as the founder of the Hatch Incubator Program, the author of the thesis is not fully objective, and can hold certain biases towards the program and its development, even that all development aspects have been validated with data from the feedback or from the team’s memos. Time to time, the research and development in this thesis was difficult, as the analysis was done post- mortem, and the real intentions and meaning behind team memos written in 2017 or 2018, were not fresh in the memory and left room for interpretation. Despite this, this thesis is built on the real feedback gathered from the attendees and therefore reflects the real problems the program and its attendees had.
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The objective of the study was to find the basic principles of the successful program, and the client wanted to know at which elements they should keep on the program in the future to keep it successful and provide the best experience possible. It is good to note that in the context of this thesis, the success of the program means a successful experience for the attendee, not successful execution of the project or its production.
Research questions used in the study were to find out what attributes contribute to the success of the program most and what factors could be threads for a successful program, if and how shifting the focus point from 2017 made the program better and what attributes could contribute on the program’s growth in future. All of the research questions were answered.
One major success factor that contributed to all aspects of the program, including its development, was the consistent collection of data and feedback. This impacted the quality of learning greatly especially in the later years of development showcased in this thesis. The development of feedback collection and the actual collection of comprehensive feedback data, as well as observations of the attendees during the program, can both be deemed as a success factor for both the program and its development.
The first research question set to find out what attributes contribute to the success of the program and what factors could be a thread to it. The biggest contributing factor to the program’s success was found to be the extra attention paid to the teaming up attendees and enabling them to network with their peers, as this change made the biggest impact to the attendees’ experience of the program. On their feedback, the alumni of 2019, were unanimous about the positive impact of the program’s community as one of its best qualities and the mindset that is emphasized.
Also, the clear goals of the program are a big factor for the program’s success. Even that clear goals and mission can be stated as a self-evident for any business-related success, the switch made a big impact on the success of the program after the first year’s goals and mission did not pan out. This also helped the program and its team to implement “celebrate mistakes and learn from them” – mindset to the following years. Letting the attendee grow their entrepreneurial and growth mindset, and empathizing on that in the program, is one of the success factors for a pre-incubator.
In smaller attributes to the contents of the program, the personal mentoring and added pitching practices were deemed as needed contents for the program is an order for it to succeed. The mentors were selected from different fields and were usually entrepreneurs themselves. Sparring with mentors was hoped to give attendees a fresh set of eyes to their business idea and bring in aspects that they had not been thinking about before. On this, the mentoring was successful each year. The mentoring was very highly liked each year, and
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multiple attendees referred to it as eye-opening, and it was helping them to clarify their goals and roadmap for their business.
The added attention to the pitching practice, and not just theory, is one of the factors for success. Even that giving a presentation is common to practice in institutes of higher education, pitching is still a skill that not very many students participating in an entrepreneurial program for the first time possesses already, and therefore it needs to be taught. Lack of the pitching practices is a threat to the program, as having attendees perform better at the final pitching competition also contributes to the brand of the program and on how it is viewed in the eyes of the stakeholders. Also, attendee’s failure or feeling of that in the pitching competition due to lack of practice or knowledge is a thread factor as it can greatly impact their experience of the program.
The strong individual brand of the program is also a factor contributing to the successful program, as it allows for stronger stakeholder connections, more neutral outlook and easier communication. Having the brand as not as closely tied to its partner organization allows the more neutral look to students outside of Laurea University of Applied Sciences and therefore more applications. More applications raise the quality of the ideas selected to the program. If the brand were to be inconclusive, it would be one of the threats to the success of the program.
The second research question was about if, and if so, how shifting the focal point of the program, from 2017 made the program better. This was one of the clearest development aspects of the results. The results of the focus point shift and defining of short- and long-term goals had immediate and visible results. The shift also took the pressure off from the attendee when they felt that they needed to change their idea during the program, as the measurement of the attendee’s success was no longer done only on the idea’s process but more on their process as the future startup founder. This switch makes attendees more motivated to participate in case they realize that their initial idea would not work is not realistic to continue with. As Hatch Incubator Program is a pre-incubator, giving attendees a safe place to fail is very important.
The last research question was aimed at towards attributes that could contribute to the program’s growth in the future. On top after already mentioned success factors, the more advanced track introduced in 2019, which enables scaling and implementing more tracks to the program, like for one specific focus group or specific niche, like healthcare or digital services themed selections. This could also widen the impact of the program to serve more diverse groups of future entrepreneurs and the possibility to add tracks do the program should be explored in upcoming years.
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In 2020, offering office space for the teams was not possible due to the pandemic situation so that this solution could be kept in mind in the future. Shared office space could potentially enable even more networking among the attendees and would be a good contribution to the creation of bigger founding teams inside of the program. As the personal mentoring was so big aspect to the program’s success, the shared office space, or so-called flex-desks could enable peer-to-peer mentoring, that can give similar effects than the mentoring offered by the programs. The shares office space would also offer the attendees a free space from where to work on their ideas, and as a student, they would not be tied to their school or home to work on their business ideas. As most of the pre-incubator, incubator or business lab facilities in Universities offer mostly work-space or flex-desk opportunities for students and staff working on business ideas, this aspect should be explored.
Supporting startup entrepreneurship will not stop being important, and as the institutes of higher education still act as hubs for knowledge and innovation, the need for entrepreneurial programs is predicted to stay. Hatch Incubator Program has already gathered a strong alumni network around it despite it being only a few years old and can already rely on alumni to spread the positive word and brand of the program. Hatch Incubator’s mission as a pre- incubator is to bring student’s business ideas closer to the founding stage and its purpose is to teach these entrepreneurially minded students the basics of a startup venture and enable them to succeed in future. Despite successful iterations of the program in past, it is way too early to say, if and how successful Hatch Incubator Program has been on its long-term goal to create more entrepreneurial ventures. The real results of the impact and effectiveness of the program can, therefore, only be seen in the years to come.
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Unpublished
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Figures Figure 1 ...... 11 Figure 2 ...... 24 Figure 3 ...... 26
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Appendices Appendix 1: Feedback Survey Questions 2017 ...... 49 Appendix 2: Feedback and Self-Evaluation Survey Questions 2018 ...... 50 Appendix 3: Feedback and Self-Evaluation Survey Questions 2019 ...... 51
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Appendix 1: Feedback Survey Questions 2017
On scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, please evaluate the workshops you participated
Workshop A on the topic A, by Person A Workshop B on the topic B, by Person B Workshop C on the topic C, by Person C The event D on the topic D Workshop E on the topic E, by Person E Workshop F on the topic F, by Person F Workshop G on the topic G, by Person G
Open ended Questions:
Open feedback about workshops? How well did the program overall serve your entrepreneurial needs and development? What did you learn during this program? What are your next steps in your entrepreneurial journey? What would you like to us to add to the program in the future? Was there something that could been left out of the program? Open comments, questions or feedback about the program?
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Appendix 2: Feedback and Self-Evaluation Survey Questions 2018
Self-evaluation questions were summited both in the start of the program and after it.
On scale 1 -5, with 5 being the highest, how would you evaluate your current knowledge and confidence level about: • Being entrepreneur? • Your pitching skills? • About your knowledge on funding? • About your knowledge on team building? • About getting customers? • About starting your own business
The feedback survey questions
On scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, please evaluate the workshops you participated and your development (both personal & business idea’s)
Was beneficial was the bootcamp weekend for your development? Open feedback, questions, comments, feelings about the bootcamp weekend? How beneficial was the workshop A for your development Open feedback, questions, comments, feelings about the workshop? How beneficial was the workshop B for your development? Open feedback, questions, comments, feelings about the workshop? How beneficial was the workshop C beneficial for your development? Open feedback, questions, comments, feelings about the Team building workshop? How beneficial was the Event D for your development? Open feedback, questions, comments, feelings about the event D? How beneficial was the workshop E for your development? Open feedback, questions, comments, feelings about the workshop E? How beneficial was the Mentoring by X, Y and Z for you? Open feedback, questions, comments, feelings about the?
How well did the program overall serve your entrepreneurial needs and development? What did you learn during this program? (mention at least 3 things) Did you succeed in your Hatch Incubator goal that you set in the beginning? How would you rate your overall learning? Did you enjoy Hatch Incubator 2018? How would you rate your Hatch Incubator 2018 experience? Why? Could you mention the best and worst thing about Hatch Incubator 2018? What are your next steps in your entrepreneurial journey? How would you evaluate the organizers and the organization of the program? What would you like to see done next year in Hatch Incubator? What we should leave out from next year’s Hatch Incubator?
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Appendix 3: Feedback and Self-Evaluation Survey Questions 2019
Self-evaluation questions summited both in the start of the program and after it. On scale 1 -5, with 5 being the highest, how would you evaluate your current knowledge and confidence level about: • Being entrepreneur? • Your pitching & Presentation skills? • Your knowledge on funding and business finances? • Your knowledge on Team Building? • On sales and finding your customers? • Starting your own business?
The weekly feedback survey structure.
How did you enjoy this week's workshops? How useful were this week's workshops for you? Which one was your favourite workshop during the weekend? Did you learn new things during this week? (YES/NO) Please mention the 3 main things that you learned during this week? What was your favourite thing in this week? Do you have any improvement suggestions for this week? Open feedback, feelings or comments you'd like to share with THE MENTOR/LECTURE OF THE WEEK about Their workshop Feedback to the Hatch team regarding arrangements, location, schedule or something else?
Final feedback survey questions
Please, on your own words, describe your journey in Hatch during this fall. How did you meet the targets/goals that you set for yourself for the program in the Bootcamp weekend? What are the biggest learnings you take with you from the program? How would you rate your Hatch Incubator 2019 experience? ON SCALE FROM 1 TO 10. Why? Please tell the best and the worst things of this year's Hatch Incubator. How likely would you recommend Hatch to your friends or fellow entrepreneurs? ON SCALE FROM 1 TO 10 In your own words, how did Hatch support you to become a founder or support your success as an entrepreneur? How could have Hatch supported you more on your entrepreneurial journey? What are your next steps in your entrepreneurial journey? What would you like to see done next year in Hatch Incubator? Free speech, comments or questions?