Where Do I Start?

WHERE to start? Usually, starting your own company can seem overwhelming and many aspects of your project could be complex to handle if you’re not familiar with the entrepreneurial process. Consequently, you need help to get your start-up running. Where should you ask for advice, where to find potential investors, and where to get any kind of help to make your idea turn into reality?

The aim of this article is not to be a comprehensive and exhaustive guide to what Lund has to offer in terms of help for nascent entrepreneurs. The objective here is more to raise your awareness of the numerous different services you can find around you. Through this article, you’ll get a brief overview of the Lund and Skåne region's innovative ecosystem.

As a student of Lund University, you are lucky to be able to study in one of the best places in Europe to develop a start-up. The region provides a very good supportive framework for innovative ventures and the perfect environment to develop your project. The following section provides an overview and map of several different organizations that could give you support for your entrepreneurial project. The list is not exhaustive and only aims at giving you an idea of what you can find around to support you in your entrepreneurial process.

Incubators

Several organizations (some of them are even in Ideon, Lund) provide support for nascent entrepreneurs in terms of coaching, advice, and other resources. If you need any advice such as feedback on your idea, networking, if you’d like to participate in workshops or events, or if you need an office space to get your business started these are the places to go. Incubators help individuals to develop their business ideas and support them through their venture’s early stages.

Venture Lab is located in Ideon. They provide coaching for nascent entrepreneurs and office spaces. You can participate in events and join their community if you need to broaden your network and connect to other people. They also have the possibility to fund some projects.

Ideon Innovation provides business development programs and services. They organize several workshops, events, and a weekly competition called Pitcher’s Corner, where you can train to pitch your idea. They also offer office spaces to certain start-ups.

LU Innovation provides support to students and researchers of Lund University to start a venture. They coach individuals willing to start their business by helping nascent entrepreneurs with commercial advice, legal and patent advice, or even funding. 

Investors

Other organizations focus on helping start-ups seeking investment. If you need capital to fund your project, you might be able to find sources of financing through the following organizations. 

Almi provides funding to early-stage start-ups with high growth potential. 

Connect Sweden matches investors to start-ups and, hence, helps entrepreneurs to raise the capital needed to develop their new venture and scale up their businesses.

Leapfrogs gives the opportunity to get financed to test your business idea. By participating in the competition, LU students have the possibility to get some investment to allow the testing of business ideas.

Competition & Events

Some organizations differentiate themselves by organizing competitions or (very brief) events to get to know young start-ups. That could be the opportunity for you to raise other potential stakeholders’ awareness or even win some prize if you take part in a competition. 

Venture Cup organizes two competitions per year, one business ideas competition and one start-up competition. You can win different prizes that could help you develop your venture and broaden your network through events and workshops.

Despite a large number of organizations, none of them focus on students and none of them is led by students like SPARK is. Moreover, most of them require fulfilling specific criteria to get support as nascent entrepreneurs. Because we noticed the lack of support for students to take the very first steps into their entrepreneurial journey, we aim to fill this gap. We differentiate ourselves by a casual and informal approach to coaching and we take advantage of our student perspective to help you achieve your goals. Spark is the first step to taking your entrepreneurial dreams to the next level. There is no requirement to get help and coaching from SPARK. We will guide you through the process of starting your own venture. More to come in the next article on our blog…

As you notice, there are numerous resources and places to ask for help of any kind, ranging from financial support to business coaching. The goal of this article isn’t to present in detail every organization that you could reach out to. Rather, we want you to be aware of the different advice, resources, and help you could get if you need it. We suggest you reach out to the Spark team to get advice on where to apply and what direction to take to optimize your chances of success. We will make sure you get the help that you need from the people you need. We firmly believe every idea has its own pathway to success and we will make sure to guide you through the right steps.

Best,

Team Spark