By Maria Nordström
They are called ”summer entrepreneurs” and with the help of Science Park Jönköping they start up their own businesses during the summer holidays.
Science Park, partly owned by Jönköping University, stimulates and contributes to the creation, development and growth of knowledge-intensive business. One of the ways to do this is to provide free coaching, workshops and counselling for students who want to start their own businesses. During summer, Science Park accepts applications from students who are interested in starting their own business, and at the same time finds companies who need help with specific tasks. The companies are then matched to the students, who form their business and start to work as consultants.
”I have been thinking for a long time about starting my own business, and this is a very good way to get going, says Johan Jonzén, who studies Business Administration at JIBS.
The tasks that the new consultants are assigned can be anything from market research and customer analysis to programming and graphical work. Science Park supports them with questions regarding taxes, keeping the books and other practical issues, and there are also office premises that they may use free of charge.
This summer, Science Park has received 90 applications from students, and this has resulted in 15 new businesses.
”We continously match new students to companies, so the number will increase as summer progresses,” says Gustav Österström, business developer at Science Park. ”This project has been running for a few years now, and there is a lot of interest both from companies and from students. The companies are very satisfied with the work of the students, and many of them return year after year.”
Johan Jonzén, Lisa Josefsson and Karl-Johan Timbäck are all students at JIBS. They have each started their own business but they will work together on their summer project for Kinnarps Interior.
”Their expectations of us are really high,” says Lisa Josefsson. ”What we do will form the basis for their future work.”
Kristofer Larsson was a summer entreprenur last year. During his last year of studying at JIBS, he has gotten more assignments and has been working in parallel with his studies. Now he will work with his own business full time. The help from Science Park has been invaluable, he says. In the future, he hopes that his business will do so well that he can employ more people.
