Resource:How to Develop a Startup House

Startup House is a popular idea in the Silicon Valley. An incubator creates a different environment and an amazing dynamic for working entrepreneurs. A positive characteristic about these houses is the drive to succeed and how they all help each other producing a constructive energy that motivates. Adam provided us with some great advice on how to develop Startup Houses on campus. He told us that before his school had a Startup House, there was only a makerspace open from 4PM till 9PM on weekdays. This didn't help the students innovate or focus because it was open only part time and oftn conflicted with students' afterschool activities. Adam noticed a pain point and started on a path to solve it.

The first step in creating a Startup House on campus is to get the university to buy the project. He clarified to us how it is vital to have a group or organization that benefits with the idea (in this case the university benefits from the innovation of students). The university owned a house so the Innovation Center Entrepreneurship House subsidized the cost of living in that house. Adam told us a key point of creating innovative ideas: the end goal doesn´t have to be a business. It can be a product, create a movement, or develop an existing idea making it more useful, the possibilities are unlimited.

Motivated by the exchange of ideas in the interview, he states how the Startup House helps students foster the culture of innovation by workshops, training in design thinking to create a solid base of active learning between peers to work altogether.

Many students while starting the process in the Startup House have the problem of “I don´t have competitors,” declares Adam. In a business, there are always competitors. A good tip is googling them, search them: type the product/service you are making and there will pop up information. A bolder idea is to contact the competitors and talk to them. Ask them how to work, what they do, the competition and be open, always from a student perspective (don’t tell them you have a project similar to them because you are a “competition”).

In a Startup House, there is no formula for success because if not, nobody would choose to fail and only succeed. The contribution of people is a major point in the essential idea: to ask for opinions because you are in a “tunnel vision” so you should have a second pair of eyes (or more if possible) to tell you another opinion. Adam claims how it is vital to build the prototype fast so then I can be shown to people. This will materialize the idea, making it real so individuals in the Startup can contribute and develop a better prototype This will improve the end product/ service/ movement and the search for funding starts.In the Startup House they do competition with prices from 1.000 to 10.000 dollars. A recommendation is to do crowdfunding in Indiegogo or Kickstarter, platforms were projects come to life.