Munich Startup: Please briefly introduce the SCE Precelerator.
Julia Zipf: The Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship (SCE), Entrepreneurship Center of the Munich University of Applied Sciences, supports around 60-70 young founders each year in building their businesses and entering the market. The university has made entrepreneurship a priority across all faculties. The SCE offers a wide range of courses and programs to engage students early on in the process of starting a business. A key component of this is the Precelerator. It is – deliberately – an offline community space for students who love project work, want to develop as problem solvers, and get a taste of the startup scene. We offer a broad workshop program for this purpose, from hands-on team T-shirt printing to AI tool training and software or hardware prototyping workshops.
Of course, we also want our community of entrepreneurs to network as effectively as possible with each other and with our experienced startup founders. To ensure this happens effectively and, above all, quickly, we host the "Brezelerator" every first Thursday of the month, a free "Meet Our Startups" breakfast, as well as numerous topic-specific events.
Our event highlight this semester will definitely be the Robot Contest "Clash of Trash" on November 14th, where self-built robots will compete against each other. Our robotics startups will also be introducing themselves.
SCE Precelerator relies on tech fun
Munich Startup: What makes your offer special?
Julia Zipf: The Precelerator focuses on tech fun and offers a playground for anyone who wants to try their hand at technical implementation or test the technical feasibility of their business idea or invention with the help of our tech experts. Of course, we also provide support in the early stages of ideation, for example, with small ideation challenges as an exercise or a case study on a real startup task. Students interested in starting a business from other universities in Munich are also already using our Precelerator program.
The Precelerator consists of a café (with free coffee), a workshop and event program, the rental of technical equipment (such as cameras, podcast microphones, drones, Raspberry, etc.) and close cooperation with the university's student-organized MakerSpace.
Hands-on and practice-oriented
Munich Startup: Who can participate in the SCE Precelerator?
Julia Zipf: From first-year students to aspiring founders, everyone can participate. We deliberately design the workshops so that no prior knowledge is required, and anyone can join at any time. Our workshops are very hands-on and practice-oriented. We want to motivate and empower people to get started. We are open to students from a wide variety of backgrounds and from all faculties. You can connect with new like-minded people and network with us.
Munich Startup: Who do interested people approach if they want to talk to you?
Julia Zipf: Students interested in founding a company can apply at www.precelerator.de Register for our workshops and event offerings and follow us on Instagram at @precelerator to stay up to date on our offerings. We also have a tech open hour with our tech experts on Mondays and Tuesdays from 1-2 p.m. A time slot can be booked hereFor all students who are studying for their MS/BSc want to work with a startup or would like an initial consultationI'm the first point of contact. Professors and lecturers who want to book a tour of the Precelerator in conjunction with the short startup presentation also contact me. The tours are very popular – around 20 professors and their courses, as well as various company representatives, visit us each semester. We count around 1,600 visitors per semester.
Talent pool of creative personalities
Munich Startup: Why does a good founding team need you at all?
Julia Zipf: The Precelerator offers existing founding teams a talent pool of go-getters with a keen interest in entrepreneurship and diverse expertise in prototyping. This pool helps them find suitable co-founders and short-term helpers (in the form of student trainees) more quickly. Startups can also delegate tasks to entire classes or BSc thesis writers to focus on core topics. Thanks to the numerous tours, startups benefit from ongoing pitch training, feedback from entire classes, and potentially even the personal network of the accompanying professors.
At the networking events, aspiring founders can connect with advanced teams early on and learn directly from them. They can also use the community to find potential co-founders for their own idea and learn important entrepreneurial skills.
Munich Startup: Please give a few examples of who was in your precelerator.
Julia Zipf: Micro Factory began its journey in the cLab, the MakerSpace. This is where their passion for prototyping was born. With the help of Precelerator Tech consulting, they were able to develop their own invention – a machine for small-batch 3D printing. Numerous pitches during our tours generated valuable contacts, and a variety of tasks were assigned to students and courses – from feedback on the business model to active support for the assembly of the first ordered machines. Hebio, a startup for intelligent robot systems for intralogistics, and Boxing Babe, a sportswear company for female boxers, also began their journeys in the Precelerator.
Success stories: Micro Factory, Hebio and Boxing Babe
Munich Startup: How do you founders view the support provided by the Precelerator?
Maximilian Strasser, Micro Factory founder: To turn a good business idea into a successful startup To create a startup, ideally a well-established company, requires not only the idea, courage, and a great team, but also supporters who help master new and complex challenges and apply them to your own business. During the initial phases of our startup, we were supported by the Precelerator through workshops, discussions, and materials. With the help of the Precelerator, we felt well prepared and knew we could count on competent support.
Julian Ernst, Hebio founder: We found new team members at Precelerator's networking events, and the Precelerator tours also allowed us to submit assignments to classes as case studies or to individual BSc thesis writers. This saved us a lot of time and significantly accelerated our progress.
Nadia Skuse, Boxing Babe founder: I'd never created a pitch deck before. The consultation and workshops at Precelerator helped me tremendously to put together a concise presentation and practice pitching.
