Characteristics and challenges of the Hungarian startup ecosystem

Abstract

In this paper, the authors’ aim to explore the Hungarian startup ecosystem on both the demand side and the supply side. To achieve this, they conducted a survey reaching both startups and investors. In the survey, the authors observed features of Hungarian startup entrepreneurs such as gender, age, education, previous entrepreneurial experience, and their motivation for establishing startup companies. Furthermore, the authors focused on financing, location, target markets, employment, and operational difficulties. They also examined the attitudes of the startupers and of the ecosystem’s other actors such as venture capital investors, incubator houses, accelerators, corporations and co-working spaces regarding various characteristics of the ecosystem. They deemed cooperation between the members of the ecosystem, international relations and the opportunity for startupers to start again after a failed startup to be the most important characteristics. They perceived the strongest characteristic of the Hungarian ecosystem to be social events (meetups and networking), while the most problematic: the opportunity to start again after failing a startup and the required level of entrepreneurial administration.