The Ventured Student: Impacts of University Startup Culture

Abstract

Over two years I studied undergraduate entrepreneurs via observations, 56 interviews, and tracking 301 LinkedIn profiles. All students report significant sacrifices in time and resources for their startups. Campus incubators show remarkable similarity in the services they offered but difference in organizational models. Centralized models are dominated by business students who persist with typically-struggling startups post-graduation and are likely to make ends meet with supplemental jobs. Decentralized models are dominated by STEM students who typically leave their startups for traditional job offers. Further, entrepreneurs talk about their entrepreneurial identities as individually internalized, contextually performed, and collectively mobilized.

Keywords: University Entrepreneurship Ecosystems, Undergraduate Entrepreneurism, Entrepreneurial Identity, Inequalities in Career Formation