The 2021 China College Students Entrepreneurship Report Has Been Officially Released by Communication University of China and The 500 Global China Director

As one of the top universities in China, Communication University of China released the 2021 China College Students Entrepreneurship Report on March 21.

Beijing, China--(Newsfile Corp. - March 25, 2022) - The 2021 China College Students Entrepreneurship Report was composed by Stella Zheng^[1], China Program Director at 500 Global^[2] (prior 500 Startups, one of the most active VCs worldwide); Xiaobin Gu^[3], Founding Partner at ZEMU VC; Yan Yugang, Executive Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Center, Communication University of China^[4] and Jiang Jie, Research Assistant of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Center, Communication University of China. The report is supported and contributed by professors and experts from top universities in China as well as executives from well-known enterprises and institutions, and focuses on the potential opportunities, challenges and bottlenecks of college students entrepreneurship. The main conclusions of the report were drawn from over 10,000 surveys nationwide, which lasted for more than six months. By the end of 2021, 13742 college students from 275 cities and 1431 colleges and universities had participated in the survey.

Figure 1

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7987/118124_4234d3b494f819ac_001full.jpg^[5]

Stella Zheng^[6] said frankly: "In the past six months, we investigated 13742 college students, interviewed 26 college teachers and industry experts in-depth... When we slowly got close to college students and listened to their voices this year, we realized that the college students were far away from our estimate. So we decided to re-examine our perspective and do the "right" and "needy" thing, which did not follow our original thought. So this report is not a statistical report in the traditional sense, but an Entrepreneurship Playbook for college students providing the hands-on knowledge, mindset, and vision based on real data to guide young founders on campus."

2021 China College Students Entrepreneurship Report contains four chapters, summarizing the statistics of 18 questions. According to the data of 10791 valid questionnaires excluding 2951 invalid ones, 96.1% of the respondents have had the idea and willingness to start a business, and 14% of the college students have founded startups or are ready to startup. Thereinto, Xiaobin Gu^[7] mentioned that most college students believed that "Internet/Mobile" and "Next generation information technology" are promising fields for entrepreneurship. College entrepreneurs tend to accumulate capital before setting up a startup, accounting for 54.8%. About 80% of the respondents expressed that they didn't know much about venture capital, and only 20.7% of the respondents believed that entrepreneurship should seek the investment of venture capital institutions, while from the view of venture capital firms, only 2.12% of the respondents are "ready founders". Hence, college students' enthusiasm for entrepreneurship has not cooled down, but there is only a small number of students who really understand it deeply.

The report also summarized the top 10 entrepreneurial trends in 2021. Among them, " College students are becoming more rational towards entrepreneurship" is an important one. The enthusiasm of college students' entrepreneurship has not decreased significantly, but more college students are taking a more rational view of entrepreneurship. In 2022, the number of fresh graduates is expected to exceed 10 million for the first time, so the government will vigorously guide the promotion of college students' entrepreneurship and employment. As for the impact of the pandemic on the entrepreneurial environment in the past three years, the report noted that venture capital firms are investing more aggressively after the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergence rate of global unicorns has achieved amazing growth after the outbreak of the pandemic, and the financing scale of Chinese startups has reached a new high in 2021. In general, the pandemic has accelerated the iterative renewal of innovation and entrepreneurship and promoted the rapid development of certain industries. The report also summarized trends such as "China and the US take the lead position in entrepreneurship on campus", " China's first-tier cities are catching up with Silicon Valley in terms of entrepreneurial ecosystem maturity", "The number of innovative talents in China will keep going up", "New media is playing a key role in entrepreneurship", " The age of first startup founding is younger and younger", "Entrepreneurship will become an essential factor in evaluating talent in the future" and so on.

In addition to data analysis, the report also focuses on practicality. Yan Yugang, director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Center of the Communication University of China, said: "Whether it is a comprehensive and three-dimensional analysis of college students' entrepreneurship or a forward-looking study and judgment of the future development trend, its purpose is to provide practical and useful help to Chinese college students' entrepreneurship. Therefore, the edit team attached great importance to practicality in the process of writing the report, so that college students can learn from them in the process of entrepreneurship."

To download the full report, please contact: sida.zheng@500.co^[8]

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7987/118124_4234d3b494f819ac_002full.jpg^[9]

The main purpose of the report is to guide college students to cultivate entrepreneurial thinking from the perspective of venture capital and bring innovative thinking and adventure spirit to their study and life. On the other hand, the report also actively advocates the establishment of a diversified and sustainable entrepreneurial ecology. Stella Zheng^[10] concluded: "Apart from college students, we also expect Chinese universities, venture capital institutions, large enterprises, and the government to find something valuable from this report. We provide a more international entrepreneurial vision and the most advanced entrepreneurial cognition. We hope to establish a more diversified and rich venture network ecosystem to help Chinese college students innovate and set up their startups. For us, venture capital is looking at and investing in the future. I firmly believe that college students are the emerging force for innovation and entrepreneurship. College students' entrepreneurship should not just be a "hot topic" on the internet. It will be the direction of our joint efforts to integrate innovation consciousness and adventure spirit into the mindset of college students."

Media contactContact: Jiang JieCompany Name: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education Center of Communication University of ChinaAddress: Building 32, Communication University of China, No.1 Dingfuzhuang East Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing, ChinaPhone: 010-65783975Website: http://www.cuc.edu.cn/Email: jiangjie@cuc.edu.cn^[11][12]

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/118124^[13]

References

1. ^{^} Stella Zheng (www.newsfilecorp.com)
2. ^{^} 500 Global (www.newsfilecorp.com)
3. ^{^} Xiaobin Gu (www.newsfilecorp.com)
4. ^{^} Communication University of China (www.newsfilecorp.com)
5. ^{^} https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7987/118124_4234d3b494f819ac_001full.jpg (orders.newsfilecorp.com)
6. ^{^} Stella Zheng (www.newsfilecorp.com)
7. ^{^} Xiaobin Gu (www.newsfilecorp.com)
8. ^{^} sida.zheng@500.co (www.newsfilecorp.com)
9. ^{^} https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7987/118124_4234d3b494f819ac_002full.jpg (orders.newsfilecorp.com)
10. ^{^} Stella Zheng (www.newsfilecorp.com)
11. ^{^} http://www.cuc.edu.cn/ (www.newsfilecorp.com)
12. ^{^} jiangjie@cuc.edu.cn (www.newsfilecorp.com)
13. ^{^} https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/118124 (www.newsfilecorp.com)