UNS — The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta encourages its students to establish start-ups during their studies. To facilitate this, FEB UNS hosted a number of events, one of them was a webinar entitled “Initiating Start-ups in University, Why Not?” on Friday (8/4/2022). The webinar was conducted through the Zoom Cloud Meetings application and attended by more than 80 participants from various groups, ranging from students to lecturers both from UNS and non-UNS.
The Vice Dean for Academic, Research, and Student Affairs FEB UNS, Prof. Dr. Izza Mafruhah S.E., M.Si., states that she strongly supports students’ interest in developing start-ups early. Further, Prof. Izza explained that students do not have to worry about funding because FEB UNS will help them through this process, although the start-ups to gain funding must pass certain selection. “We hope that students at FEB UNS can get involved in productive activities, especially now that there is an abundance of opportunities. Moreover, through the Semesta program, the KWU FEB UNS team will select several groups to get funding from the UNS Student Affairs Office. There will also be other greater opportunities,” explained Prof. Izza.
This webinar presents the Head of the UNS Startup and Incubation Division, Catur Sugiarto, S.E., M.S.M., Ph.D., as the main speaker. This young doctor, who graduated from Aix-Marseille University, France, has been in charge of managing start-up initiatives at UNS for quite some time. For this reason, he is expected to provide additional insights for FEB UNS students regarding start-ups. Dr. Catur reveals that start-ups are one of the tools that students can use to establish their entrepreneurship. According to him, students have great potential to develop start-ups. “The potential that students have today is enormous, and I think start-ups become a relevant term and business model in the current era, in the digital era, in the pandemic era, to be a solution to the problems of various parties,” said Dr. Catur.
Establishing a Start-up in Five Steps
Dr. Catur reveals the steps to set up a start-up in this webinar. He said that start-ups should be started by building a team, which will certainly affect the future development of the start-ups. Clashes among the team member, according to Dr. Catur, is a natural phase experienced by start-ups. After establishing a team, the next step that must be done is to find a solution to the right problem because start-ups are present to bring solutions to an existing novel problem in the community. For this reason, the team needs to explore the problem they wish to solve and find the right solution to implement. “Before we discuss market, sales, or business model issues, we must first map out what solutions we will provide to users,” explained Dr. Catur.
After finding a solution, a start-up needs to validate the product to be released. A number of experiments are required before the product is completely validated. The next step that must be done is to make a product-market fit and business model fit. A start-up business needs hard skills and soft skills to carry out these two aspects. Dr. Catur says that the initial phases of a start-up establishment will be easier to do through a business incubator. For that reason, Dr. Catur suggests that students who are interested in establishing a start-up business can search for information and enter the incubation program at UNS Innovation Hub. Humas UNS
Reporter: Ida Fitriyah
Editor: Dwi Hastuti