Overview

• Twenty percent of German students say they intend to launch their own business after graduation.
• Despite this interest, annual startup formation in Germany remains around 3,000 ventures.
• Startup-Verband analysis suggests that if every interested student founded a company, annual new firms could increase to about 21,000.
• Only 15 percent of students identify professors as entrepreneurial role models compared with 64 percent who look to public figures and 48 percent to personal contacts.
• Prospective founders are driven by a desire to learn something new (92 percent) and achieve meaningful work (85 percent) and over half anticipate working more than 50 hours per week.