From Idea to Success Story

The forum “Erfolgreiche Unternehmensgründung” brought together students, representatives of various start-up services, and business experts at USTP – University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten. Not only the students profited from these insights into legal and tax-related requirements, credits, financing and promotion possibilities, choice of location, and search for investors – the companies also profited from the direct interaction and dialogue with students and start-ups.

Inspiring Environment

“When students, business founders, and companies come together in person, we create an environment where our participants can both establish meaningful connections and gain professional input and stimuli. This combination builds a solid foundation for start-up success later on”, emphasises Peiman Zamani, lecturer and long-standing organiser of the event, who is particularly glad that students of the Faculty of Engineering and Business headed by Franz Fidler got to talk to several graduates who have already started successful businesses of their own.

Some of the companies and keynote speakers that offered exciting insights were:

• Deepentix – Defensible Decisions | Morteza Amini, Co-Founder & CEO
• Brewcycle – From beer waste to valuable products | Miriam Pratter, CRO
• TAGBASE – The Future of Product Authenticity | Manuel Mertl, CEO & Co-Founder
• RNAnalytics – Size matters | Viktoria Enkmann, CEO
• Mindset Technologies GmbH – Mind-enabling Neurotech | Christian Kusmitsch, CEO
• Podcasts with a Twist – part of E²UDRES³ | Sarah Bosch | Founder & Managing Director of Podtwist Media | Team Lead Saxion Media Xpert Centre | Saxion University of Applied Sciences

Entrepreneurship and European Collaboration

With her company Podtwist Media, an agency specialising in corporate podcasts, Sarah Bosch embodies that special combination of entrepreneurial spirit and European collaboration that is so important to USTP.

Bosch is not only the founder and Managing Director of Podtwist Media, but also the team coordinator of the Saxion Media Xpert Centre at the Saxion University of Applied Sciences, a partner in the European University Alliance E³UDRES² coordinated by USTP. This higher education alliance encompasses nine institutions that jointly develop new forms of higher education, promote challenge-based learning, advance innovative research, and design the vision of a European multi-campus. In her contribution, Sarah Bosch impressively showed how closely entrepreneurial innovation and the further development of this network go together – and how much potential this higher education alliance holds.

Panel Discussion: Market, Target Group, Competition

In a panel discussion moderated by Alexander Adrowitzer, Academic Director for Digital Innovation and Research at USTP, experts examined the three most important pillars of a convincing business plan: market, target group, and competition. The following experts were part of the specialist exchange:

• Karl Biedermann (Austria Wirtschaftsservice – Deep Technologies)
• Paul Hofstätter (Sparkasse Niederösterreich Mitte West Aktiengesellschaft)
• Simone Pies (RPunkt management & beteiligungs GmbH)
• Ines Wöckl (Flasher GmbH)
• Nicole Wöllert (Lower Austrian Chamber of Labour, business foundation service)

Vibrant Start-Up Scene in St. Pölten

As an open campus, USTP is actively involved in numerous cooperations and initiatives to promote knowledge and technology transfer and innovation in the region.

“USTP offers its students an environment where innovative ideas are supported all the way from conception to business foundation. The forum ‘Erfolgreiche Unternehmensgründung‘ provides important impulses for that and brings aspiring business founders together in lasting networks”, said USTP CEO Hannes Raffaseder at the forum’s opening ceremony.

“A lively start-up scene noticeably contributes to the development of the town and region of St. Pölten. The forum ‘Erfolgreiche Unternehmensgründung‘ makes a valuable contribution to this”, stressed Mayor Matthias Stadler who was represented at the event by city councillor Ingrid Heihs.

Heihs expressed her enthusiasm about the students’ commitment and professionalism in presenting their projects. Moreover, she pointed out central support offers: “Our business service ‘ecopoint’ is the first point of contact for all start-up initiatives and supports projects from the beginning. The network ‘founders stp’ brings together start-ups in the region. And with SMARTUP, we specifically promote promising young companies.”

Participating Companies

Visit the event page