Startup Lab

A New Entrepreneurship Structure in Brazilian Universities

Abstract

Startup development seems to be a new trend in the field of entrepreneurship, especially among young people. Universities, for being institutions that work mostly with young people, need to adapt to this new scenario, in order to become entrepreneurial universities. Literature abounds when dealing with the behavioral skills that an entrepreneur should have. However, little is discussed about the technical skills that the student must develop to become a startup entrepreneur. Therefore, this article proposes the creation of a structure within Brazilian universities, entitled Startup Lab, which aims to develop students' entrepreneurial skills for startup development. Through a case study, using the participant observation technique, the degree of development of three major skills often found in entrepreneurial startups was evaluated. Our findings have shown that the skills to be further developed by the students are the self-financing skills and the commercial skills. It was observed that partnerships with financing agents or entrepreneurial marathons are a good way to make students develop such skills.