The Ljubljana University Incubator (LUI) issued a tender for support for establishing and starting up businesses, within which twenty business ideas will receive support. The selected business ideas will receive incubator services equivalent to EUR 3,500 for 100 per cent coverage of the costs of setting up and starting up a business. The support will be provided in the form of mentorship, counselling, education and the use of working premises with pertaining common infrastructure. The selected ideas will be included in an intensive programme which will run from 3 March to 30 May 2014. After this date, the start-ups can integrate into all activities within the programme of networking and mentoring by the end of the year, the LUI has announced. Applications are invited from eligible candidates below the age of 35 who set up a sole trader enterprise (s.p.) or a private limited company (d.o.o.) and become its employees by 30 May 2014. The tender details are available on the webpage http://www.lui.si/blog/2014012112253073. According to the LUI, support for start-ups has yielded excellent results in the last five years. Their programmes have included eighty start-ups, 95 per cent of which have survived. A quarter of these start-ups have already received investments and 41 per cent are operating in foreign markets.
Because being a start-up entrepreneur is a tough job, said Jerry Colonna, an American investor and business coach of young entrepreneurs during his recent visit to Slovenia.
Mr Colonna emphasises the human side of entrepreneurship and says that an entrepreneur should not be afraid of failure, and anyone who has dealt with failure should speak openly about it. According to Mr Colonna, the vast knowledge of the university should be transferred to life in Slovenia. He is convinced that entrepreneurs are not in business for the sake of money, but to change the world. Therefore, a start-up company is not only associated with audacity, but also with mistakes and fear of failure. To know the meaning of fearlessness, you have to know what fear is, said the successful investor.
How do we break free from the crunch caused by the adverse economic trends of recent years?
Where does Slovenia stand on start-ups in comparison with abroad? Entrepreneurs believe that the majority of European start-ups lack experience in the creation of major global companies, since there is almost no tradition. Primarily, knowledge is lacking of how to increase the number of clients and how to plan the user experience and product development. Slovenian entrepreneurs and innovators apparently pay too much attention to technological potential and too little to market potential or to bringing technological developments in line with the development of business models. The focus should be more on including future buyers into product development – buyers should test new products in their very early development stages and enterprises should adjust their development to the feedback received from the market. In well-organised foreign start-ups, the changes and adjustment of solutions are much faster, both in terms of products and business models, in a way that customers want. In Slovenia, a technological solution is very often developed entirely separately — without contact with customers — to the point of perfection. Of course, it is then very often disappointing when such solutions cannot be sold, since, in spite of their technological perfection, they do not meet customers’ needs.
What do start-ups expect from the state?
In particular, the state should ask how to help them grow. The taxation of wages is painful; the state should help universities to open up to foreign students and professors, simplify the recruitment procedure for highly-skilled foreign personnel in enterprises, and empower civil servants to assist actively in procedures and to feel responsible and accountable for success in the economy. A start-up should be the best at meeting the needs of potential customers in the market, rather than at writing tender applications; hence, start-ups that opt for subsidies spend a lot of time obtaining them and miss opportunities that exist in the market and would lead to long-term success. Consequently, they expect the Government to involve them in drawing up plan for the development of the start-up environment.
The Slovenian Start:up Roadshow is coming
The organisers of the Start:up of the Year Competition 2014 will hold a series of events entitled 'Start:up Roadshow' in several towns. Together with local entrepreneurs and experts, the events will promote entrepreneurship, and provide adequate information and entrepreneurial experience. The events will serve as the preparation for the Start:up of the Year Competition.
The participants will acquire corporate knowledge about establishing a start-up company, applying to enter the competition and about obtaining a start-up subsidy offered by the Slovene Enterprise Fund under P2 tender.
Innovative enterprises, younger than three years, may compete and submit their business plans to the website www.startup.si by 10 March. In the evaluation of the business plans, the focus will be on the entrepreneurial team, their knowledge and the size of the market, and on the clarity of their business model. The organisers expect brief and concise business plans, with clearly defined and even confirmed hypotheses of the business model.
Vesna Žarkovič, SINFO
The Ljubljana University Incubator (LUI) issued a tender for support for establishing and starting up businesses, within which twenty business ideas will receive support. The selected business ideas will receive incubator services equivalent to EUR 3,500 for 100 per cent coverage of the costs of setting up and starting up a business. The support will be provided in the form of mentorship, counselling, education and the use of working premises with pertaining common infrastructure. The selected ideas will be included in an intensive programme which will run from 3 March to 30 May 2014. After this date, the start-ups can integrate into all activities within the programme of networking and mentoring by the end of the year, the LUI has announced. Applications are invited from eligible candidates below the age of 35 who set up a sole trader enterprise (s.p.) or a private limited company (d.o.o.) and become its employees by 30 May 2014. The tender details are available on the webpage http://www.lui.si/blog/2014012112253073. According to the LUI, support for start-ups has yielded excellent results in the last five years. Their programmes have included eighty start-ups, 95 per cent of which have survived. A quarter of these start-ups have already received investments and 41 per cent are operating in foreign markets.
