Straight from the Source: What Students Said in the Startup Survey Part II- Barriers and Proposed Solutions

Yesterday, I covered Part I of the results of a survey I put out last week to ask students and young entrepreneurs the tough questions:  "What are the challenges to engaging more young people?" and "What are your ideas for improving the ecosytem?" and a lot more. (You can see the survey here).  In total, 21 students from 9 different universities responded to the survey.  I am blown away with the amount of detail and thoughtfulness they put into their answers. I'd like to now share the 2nd half of the results with all of you here:

Students Entering the Boston Entrepreneur Ecosystem Survey Results - Part II - Barriers and Proposed Solutions

Biggest Barriers:

I asked the respondents what the biggest barriers were to get engaged and involved as a student.  Here are the most common and striking responses:

1. Awareness and Perception - There was a lot of uncertainty and questions: What are the opportunities? What are realistic expectations of students who attend (do you need to have a startup?) There was also a lack of awareness of how big and vibrant the startup ecosystem is.
2. You need to have a startup - Many felt to get the most out of it, you need to have  startup. Otherwise, it's difficult to answer the question "what are you working on?"  
3. Workload - Students have a tough schedule with classes that can be all-consuming.  Studying for a midterm trumps going to an event.
4. Travel - As mentioned yesterday, for many schools it's a major effort to travel into Boston/Cambridge for an event.
5. Lack of Mentors - The most talked about of the barriers was a general feeling that there weren't mentors out there that could help student entrepreneurs.  I bet we can do a lot to change that simply by trying to be more helpful to students off the bat.
6. Event Quality - It can be a real crap shoot on whether it's a good event. Especially when you may be putting off some studying or traveling far, this can be very discouraging.
7. Overwhelming challenges - Not everyone is an extrovert and students are in general novices in the entrepreneur game, so it can feel like a daunting challenge to get involved.  
8. Fear of Failure and Debt - A number of students mentioned the fear of their college startup failing and that they didn't want that to reflect poorly on them.  In addition, the pressure of student loans, makes it difficult to think about starting a company either right after college, or dropping out to focus on it.

Those are tall challenges, but many of them can be solved if we:

1. Go to the source.  We need to go and directly engage students and trumpet the power and openness of our startup community. Yes, that means we need to go to their schools for a few events.
2. Step up and help. See a student at an event? Make sure he feels welcome and see if there's something you can do to help them. Often, a small gesture on your part can mean a lot to the recipient. 
3. Be Louder.  The more we can do to make people aware of the opportunities our ecosystem provides and what we're specifically doing for young people, the more students will be enticed to give it a try. Of course, we have to make sure that message actually reaches the students...which is not our traditional channels. 

What are their proposed solutions?

I couldn't let them finish the survey without offering their ideas for how to help engage more students, so here are their ideas:

1) Give them real challenges...

Multiple respondents suggested we really push and support young people in taking chances...try a summer project...get a desk around other entrepreneurs (can we provide them a discount or free trial?).  By giving it a try, they're likely to learn the most and can "catch the disease" as @Dharmesh calls it.

2) Have events at the schools (not just MIT and Harvard)

No, the record's not broken, but it bears repeating:  it's very hard for students to always travel in for events and it's a high barrier to entry. You will engage many more students if you Go To Them. So, we need to start having the occasional event at schools, preferably with a big name speaker as a draw (they get students excited).  

3) Show them examples of others like them making it happen

Many respondents were very interested in hearing about successes and failures of entrepreneurs, especially young ones like them.  They want to hear the "blood, sweat and tears" journey and to know that "people just like you are doing it."  (Sounds like students would really like Founder's Dialogues, but we hopefully can do more to recognize successful young entrepreneurs). 

4) Better access to mentors

This was the single most common comment throughout the survey; having someone you can talk to to get you on your way and point you in the right direction was a key question. I think that many members of the ecosystem can provide this in the short term.  Others also suggested dinners with successful entrepreneurs (a la Bill Warner's Dinner with a Winner).  They also asked for events to be better structured to meet mentors (maybe at those events we're going to have at the campuses, people can wear a sticker that says "I'm willing to mentor?") 

5) Focus content on what their questions are

Most student entrepreneurs are in the earliest stages of their business and so they're most interested in content that is aligned with that: Getting a good idea, Team Building, etc They also mentioned help in a few other topics:

• Team building and project selection
• Help breaking down the distrust between engineering and business
• Finding an idea you love and are passionate about

6) Get students to bring a friend

Getting the first student to come out can be very difficult for all the reasons I've already covered.  A key comment I found a few times was that that first student will often invite friends after they have a good experience, or bring them along the first time so they feel more comfortable. We need to encourage more of it. 

7) Engage Professors...

Professors are a great way to reach students.  They can require their students to go to an event (as professors at Northeastern, Simmons and Emerson have done already), help with logistics of getting students there and instantly solve the "bring a friend" challenge as all your classmates already have to go.

8) Connect the student e-clubs to the larger organizations across the city

Many students in college only look to their entrepreneurship clubs on their campuses. Therefore, a great way to reach and engage them is to reach out them. Those clubs are already doing the outreach on their campuses.  They're also the perfect people to talk to if you want to have an event at their school.

So there you have it. This is Straight From the Source.  Are you ready to rise to the challenge? If we want our students to stay and get involved, they just told us what the challenges and solutions are.  Let's put it to good use.

Are you ready to engage and help more students join the ecosystem?

 Photo credit: lorelei on Flickr