Developing Start-up Ecosystem in Small Cities: Case of Žilina and Leipzig City

Abstract

Favourable start-up ecosystem is prerequisite for emerging start-up companies to succeed on the market taking into account their missing resources. Companies, government, universities as well as region are actively seeking to develop new activities, which would help start-up companies to succeed on the market. From government point of view the support of start-up activities is crucial in two ways: it is solving the problem of unemployment and supporting the economy therefore there were increased initiatives for start-up companies in the last year. This paper describes the development of two ecosystems in Leipzig and Žilina region. There was used case study method for describing current situation in the two cities where Leipzig city was used as an example of best-in-class small city start-up ecosystem. By the analysis of Leipzig city the problems in Žilina city ecosystem were detected. To enhance emerging and succeeding of start-ups in Žilina region there was proposed a framework for creating favourable start-up ecosystem. There was missing any framework, which would involve current activities concerning start-ups. Therefore the new framework was developed with an objective to interconnect current activities with a common goal (help developing innovativeness and entrepreneurship in the region by improving existing ecosystem). To achieve this goal several different activities will be provided (education, networking, consulting, etc.) for start-uppers. The proposed framework should support policymakers and practitioners in setting up new start-up ecosystem and serve as basis for future research.