• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.57-71
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception and demand of local youth and to find ways to support universities in order to create an youth start-up ecosystem. To this end, 509 young people living in Seoul were analyzed to recognize and demand young people in the region for youth start-ups, and to support universities. The findings are as follows. First, as a result of analyzing young people's perception of youth start-ups in the region, the "Youth Start-up Program" was analyzed the highest in terms of the demand for regional programs by university. In addition, there was a high perception that the image of youth startups in the region was "challenging" and "good for changing times." Second, after analyzing the demand for support for youth start-ups in the region, it appeared in the order of mentoring, start-up education, and creation of start-up spaces. And it showed different needs for different ages. Third, the results were derived from analysis of the demand for university support for the creation of a regional youth start-up ecosystem, the criteria for selecting local youth start-up support organizations, and the period of participation in local youth start-up support. Based on the results of the above research, the implications and suggestions of university support for the creation of a community of youth start-up ecosystem are as follows. First of all, it is necessary to develop and operate sustainable symbiosis mentoring programs focusing on university's infrastructure and regional symbiosis. Second, it is necessary to develop and utilize step-by-step systematic microlearning content based on the needs analysis of prospective youth start-ups. Third, it is necessary to form an open youth start-up base space for local residents in universities and link it with the start-up process inside and outside universities. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for establishing policies for supporting youth start-ups and establishing and operating strategies for supporting youth start-ups at universities.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.27-36
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• 2016

Venture companies, which can commercialize various kinds of new ideas and creating added value, are amid of great attention. Since most of venture companies in initial development stages cannot finance its capital sufficiently all by their own, investments from outside investors are key factor to their survival. However, they have lots of difficulties in financing from outside investors because of their typical uncertain but favorable investment characteristics. Moreover, even though they had successfully financed from outsiders, problems related to their stakeholders, such as interrupting in management and types of investments, cause contrary results to firms. Therefore there are various kinds of systems for startups like angels, venture capitals and governmental supports. Even so, investments and supports for venture companies are still not sufficient. 'Accelerator', which is a brand-new investment type started from Silicon Valley in United States during the mid 2000, is growing attention these-days. It mainly supports startups financially in the initial development stages, however, it also supports the firms by providing mentoring, education and networking services. On the other hand, difference between existing investment types and performance of the investment is still in controversy. Therefore this study compared investment behavior between accelerator and venture capital. As a result, we found that the difference in investment behavior of accelerators and venture capital.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.45-56
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• 2016

According to attended about startup, there are many policy and program for activating of startup. Government's policy and program was scale up and arrangements for high quality. Nevertheless, policies and programs are concentrated on ante-startup stage. And experts have questioned that effect. So, there are needed a program focusing pre-startup and incubation stage. Accordingly, this study propose a kind of educative program named Pre-Startup Support Program. Through the program, pre-startup teams or entrepreneurs will inspect items, business skills and surroundings of market and competitors. And they have a time for complementation of deficiency. This study selects ETRI spin-off(research based spin-off born ETRI) by means of an object of study. ETRI's programs are started in 2011 with intent to incubate the entrepreneur through market research, mentoring, space of incubation and funds. This study analyze using the ISA(Important-Satisfaction Analyze) and the regression. We classify the pre-startup support program using the ISA. And then, we analyze the influence of satisfaction using the regression. On the basis of results, we identify the effectiveness of pre-startup support program and propose plans for reinforcement. In conclusion, adopting a pre-startup support program is expected to success of startup.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.157-165
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to suggest a successful operating strategy of co-working space. Therefore, the operating elements were identified through a literature research. And then, verified through site investigation and interview of operation managers. We found out that the high level operating elements are 'Co-working management', 'Membership management' and 'Supporting management' And the low level elements of Co-working management are 'Relationship facilitation', 'Networking event & Party' and 'Community & Communication', Membership management's are 'Service diversity & Price plan', 'Promotion & PR' and 'Alliance & Partnership', Supporting management's are 'Space & Interior', 'Facility & Device, Solution' and 'Mentoring & Education'. And the questionnaire was designed and conducted to Co-working space operators through the AHP method. As a result of the collected data analyzing, the highest priority was the operational element 'Community & Communication', and 'space and interior' is next, 'Service diversity & Price plan' is the third. The results were discussed with the relevant experts and it presents the following operating strategies. First, to create an environment suitable to voluntary coworking is the most important element. In particular, good management of 'Community & Communication' should be considered as a high priority operations strategy in a coworking space. Second, interior and space utilization helps in making the environment and atmosphere conducive to coworking. Office devices and facilities such as IT infra, printer, fax, scan, paper...etc are also important elements. But the reason why these necessary items are given a low priority is that these items don't need any special strategy. Third, in order to create a stable profit, 'Service diversity & Price plan' should be the characteristics of each coworking space because it will attract and secure enough customers. This study is valuable, it could be a great guideline for coworking space in an early stage to adopt operating model and strategy

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.41-54
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to find out how the support system of the government and the local governments for enhancing the success rate of the startup firms affected the performance of the enterprises according to the behavior characteristics of the founders. It is divided entrepreneurial support system into entrepreneurial policy support such as entrepreneurial education, mentoring and consulting, and funding of startup support such as policy fund and R & D fund, distinguished the behavior of founder into behaviors for discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities and behaviors for exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. In order to analyze whether it affects the corporate management performance, a research model was created based on the previous research and hypotheses were set up, and the hypotheses were verified based on this questionnaire. The results of this study are as follows: First, it is found that the support for entrepreneurial policy has a positive effect on the behavior characteristics of entrepreneur. Second, it is found that the startup support such as policy fund affects the behavioral characteristics for finding the opportunity of the founder, but it does not affect the behavioral characteristics for the opportunity exploit. Third, it was found that the behavior characteristics of entrepreneur founding opportunity and exploition of entrepreneurial opportunity influenced the performance of the company. According to the this study, the following conclusion were obtained, First, it is necessary to apply different policies according to the stage of growth of startup companies. Second, startup companies grow through the stages of development of new technologies and ideas, commercialization, and marketing, at each stage, entrepreneur must overcome the so-called Death Valley, which requires funding.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2013

Purpose - As the members of the baby boomer generation have retired in earnest, the start-up market has received more attention than ever before. According to recent statistical data, an increasing number of entrepreneurs are in their fifties. There has been a continuous increase in promotional materials on small business issues published by start-ups. This means that senior start-ups have increased in number. A number of support systems have been established for youth start-ups, but there are few government support policies in place for the senior start-up market. Thus, this study suggests a number of constructive alternatives from the perspective of government policy and marketing strategy for entrepreneurs, in order to generate competitiveness in the start-up process, through examining the current state of the senior start-up and by diagnosing extant problems. Research design, data, methodology - This study gives a number of options regarding the government's support policies and the securing of competitiveness in order to vitalize senior business start-ups. As for the government's support policies, funding support policy, publicizing business start-up policies, and operating systematic mentoring policies before retirement have all been covered. In particular, in order for senior business start-ups to become competitive, development through mutual relations with diverse policies is urgently needed. The aging population is becoming an issue in Korea, so businesses for the aged, and the creation of jobs for these people, will become a social issue. Senior business start-ups are playing an important role in expanding enterprise productivity, in addition to enhancing national competitiveness. Expanding senior business start-ups is important, because they also serve to expand the national infrastructure. Productivity increase through continuous expansion is thus recommended. Results - In order to expand the competitiveness of business start-ups, marketing-related observations and learning in regard to customers are necessary for the baby boomer generation, and competitiveness for seniors is urgently needed. Conclusions - Studies on the business start-up policies for the domestic baby boomer generation are almost non-existent, and systematic studies on small businesses are necessary. Only the government is providing statistical studies for small businesses, and such research remains at a general level for entrepreneurs. Therefore, a support system that can actually assist entrepreneurs is essential. Continuous business start-up studies with respect to the baby boomers should be vitalized, to invigorate studies on competition. In order to supplement and strengthen foundational support, senior business start-ups must develop various competitive capabilities with a focus on the customer. The government and the various stakeholder agencies and organizations involved with start-up businesses must find ways to offer support to founders. Such support should include access to knowledge and legal and consultancy services in order to incubate the rapid increase in start-ups founded by seniors. Government support projects should be expanded to meet this end.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.45-55
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• 2022

Accelerator is a private investment institution that provides startups with comprehensive solutions to solve various difficulties such as startup facilities, funds, commercialization, securing a market etc. In addition to the role of an investor as a new startup support model, accelerators have contributed much to improvement of business ability of startups through intensive mentoring. Considering that previous studies gave weight to the determinants of investment from the perspective of investors, this study made a comparative analysis on the relative importance of determinants of investment in startups among accelerators, investors and entrepreneurs through the method of AHP. Results show that accelerators and investors regard "managerial characteristics" of startups as of the highest importance, whereas entrepreneurs think that "market characteristics" of startups are the most important. The result stems from an empirical judgment from the perspective of investors that success of startups depends on the ability of entrepreneur, and it is considered that investors evaluated marketability of startups as the most important factor in consideration of investment payback period. The result is similar to the result of previous studies on the determinants of investment determinants of angel investors and venture capitals. This paper is expected to make a contribution to the advancement of investment decision-making model for accelerators to discover startups with high possibility to grow and achieve more in incubation and investment.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.13-35
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• 2020

Startup accelerators are a new type of investors providing a certain amount of shares for imparting education, mentoring, networking, and providing space and seed money that can directly resolve the difficulties faced by nascent entrepreneurs (Clarysse, 2016). Startup accelerators have expanded worldwide as their influence over the startup ecosystem has increasingly been established (Pauwels et al., 2016; Cohen & Hochberg, 2014). This study was conducted to derive investment determinants of startup accelerators that are emerging as major investment players around the world. To this end, the accelerator-type determinants of investment were derived. As previous research on this topic is nonexistent, this process involved qualitative meta-synthesis, literature reviews, observation, and in-depth interviews. First, more than 30 research papers were examined for the determinants of investment for firms at an early stage of their foundation, and the categories and determinants of investment in the relevant studies were comparatively analyzed using qualitative meta-synthesis. Further, related data were investigated to identify the characteristics of accelerators, and the startup evaluation process of US accelerators was studied. The more than 100 questions raised during this process were coded to examine the determinants of investment that accelerators considered important. In-depth interviews were conducted with four US accelerators to identify the characteristics of accelerators and key determinants of investment. Ultimately, 5 categories of accelerator-type determinants of investment and 26 subordinate determinants of investment were derived. The results were verified and supplemented by consulting with seven accelerators in Korea. The results were confirmed after pilot tests and verification by seven domestic accelerators. After confirming the accelerator-type determinants, the reliability of them was verified by examining the importance and priority of each category through the quantitative survey of Korean accelerators. The research that elicited the accelerator-type investment determinants is the first research and is expected to be a major reference to the progress of subsequent studies. This research that systematically derived the investment determinants of the accelerator is expected to make major contributions to the progress of follow-up studies, the process of selecting startups, and the investment decision-making process of the accelerators.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.27-42
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• 2020

Startup accelerators have emerged as new investment entities that help early startups, which are not easy to survive continuously due to lack of funds, commercialization capabilities, and experiences. As their positive performance on early startups and the ecosystem has been proven, the number of early startups which want to receive their investment is also increasing. However, they are vaguely preparing to attract accelerators' investment because they do not have any information on what factors the accelerators consider important. In addition, researches on startup accelerators are also at an early level, so there are no remarkable prior studies on factors that decide on investment. Therefore, this study aims to help startups prepare for investment attraction by looking at what factors are important for accelerators to invest, and to provide meaningful implications to academia. In the preceding study, we derived five upper level categories, 26 lower level accelerators' investment determinants through the qualitative meta-synthesis method, secondary data analysis, observation on US accelerators and in-depth interviews. In this study, we want to derive important implications by deriving priorities of the accelerators' investment determinants. Therefore, we used AHP that are evaluated as the suitable methodology for deriving importance and priority. The analysis results show that accelerators value market-related factors most. This means that startups that are subject to investment by accelerators are early-stage startups, and many companies have not fully developed their products or services. Therefore, market-related factors that can be evaluated objectively seem to be more important than products (or services) that are still ambiguous. Next, it was found that the factors related to the internal workforce of startups are more important. Since accelerators want to develop their businesses together with start-ups and team members through mentoring, ease of collaboration with them is very important, which seems to be important. The overall priority analysis results of the 26 investment determinants show that 'customer needs' and 'founders and team members' understanding of customers and markets' (0.62) are important and high priority factors. The results also show that startup accelerators consider the customer-centered perspective very important. And among the factors related to startups, the most prominent factor was the founder's openness and execution ability. Therefore, it can be confirmed that accelerators consider the ease of collaboration with these startups very important.