A master thesis from Aalborg University
Mentor+: Incubation, mentoring and project management for young entrepreneurs
Author(s)
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2014
Submitted on
2014-09-05
Pages
180 pages
Abstract
By 2015 the Danish government has a goal of being amongst the societies with most startups in the world. In 2007 66% more startups entered a positive growth path in USA compared to Denmark and we are also behind our neighboring countries in this regard. (Erhvervs- og Byggestyrelsen and REG LAB, 2007). This thesis explores how a service system can be designed to combine mentoring, incubation and project management in a way that supports highly educated entrepreneurs with little professional experience getting a successful start with their business. This thesis is based on qualitative interviews (Kvale, 1997) with two entrepreneurs and three experts on the fi eld of entrepreneurship. The interviews are performed and analyzed in a narrative perspective, using tools such as time lines (Morelli, 2009b), scenarios (Bødker, 2000) and prototyping (Jegou, 2010) to make concepts and design ideas tangible and drive the design process forward. This project results in a design proposal called Mentor+, which is a six month program that helps highly educated entrepreneurs with little professional experience getting a good start with their business. Mentor+ offers the entrepreneur a shared offi ce space at Symbion* combined with a mentoring course which is supported with a project calendar. During the six month course the Entrepreneur will be guided to set a target and plan its execution, follow the process through and evaluate the outcome. The problem set for this thesis is an open problem, which can possibly have many right answers to it. Mentor+ is an example of how this problem can be solved, without being a universal answer. What is essential is that Mentor+ is a synthesis of the feedback from entrepreneurs and experts on the fi eld of entrepreneurship. Hopefully this project can serve as an inspiration for people working with Entrepreneurs.
Keywords
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