Designing a Support System for Technology Oriented Starting Entrepreneurs. Ruud G.M. Koopman University of Twente/Saxion University P.O. Box 70.000 7500 KB Enschede The Netherlands +31 53 5376876
[email protected] venturelabinternational.com Abstact As development of knowledge-based businesses is a key factor for revitalization of a region, VentureLab Twente was designed to support entrepreneurs in their ambition in growth. Coaching, or soft support, is known as one of the most valued elements in VentureLab Twente and also in other support systems. But we know very little about the economic effect of soft support. And the aspects that are being researched about soft support are mostly about the content and methods of support. The personal fit between the coach and coachee is recognized as important, but not being researched. The elements used to support starting entrepreneurs are finance, knowledge, network and strategy; known as the 4S NIKOS model. While almost all participants of VentureLab Twente mention the value of their coach, as fulfilling a key role to develop these element, there is in literature not much known about this. There is also some confusion about the definition of coaching. While some definition focus on a narrow field of support, others use a much broader definition, that enters the fields claimed by mentoring, consulting, teaching etcetera. These fields are collected under soft support. To find out about who is the best person for soft support not only the supporting methods are important. The chemistry or personal fit is seen as a precondition for any result, although there is almost no research known in this field. While soft support in entrepreneurship education is used in a wide variety of rolls, like teacher, coach, counselor, it would be interesting to research the influence of personal fit at its effectiveness of soft support. Literature shows five factors that could be influencing the personal fit, but that‟s not researched well. Still this personal fit is seen as influencing the quality of entrepreneurship education. The question for scholars of entrepreneurship education is if you can get a personal fit with every student when having different personalities in the supporting system of entrepreneurial education? The questions and discussion are helpful to find improvement for entrepreneurship support. The questions are about the type of people that are needed to support entrepreneurship and how the types of people influence the quality of the support. This includes support by business incubators and by entrepreneurship education. It also gives in indication about the importance of doing research in this field and what can be done with the results. While most of the teachers for entrepreneurship education are selected by the knowledge on their field, the importance of personal support (coaching) during the start of entrepreneurship is acknowledged as very important. But about how to use this in entrepreneurship education is not well known. This paper gives a new approach on how to improve the personal support of entrepreneurship education and to improve the quality of the personal relation. Introduction Enterprises, and specially knowledge-based businesses are very important for the development and revitalization of a region, especially if that region has had a decline of the 1
traditional industry (Gorman and McCarthy, 2006). This has been also the case in the Eastern Part of the Netherlands. The University of Twente was established especially for this reason. The University of Twente is known for its large number of spinoffs. However the amount of jobs of these spinoffs isn‟t that much, due to the relative small number of employees per startup;
