The mission of the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia is to mobilize young people, and present them entrepreneurship as a lifestyle and at the same time help with implementation of their original and innovative business ideas.

Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia (YEAS) was founded in 2010 as an organization uniting Slovak entrepreneurs in 40 years. Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia (YEAS) was established in 2010 as an organization which associates young entrepreneurs under age of 40.

The main reason of establishment of YEAS was a lack of attention devoted to encouragement of young generation of entrepreneurs, who will represent the future of Slovak business. Young people are usually not suffering from a lack of new ideas, but they are missing know-how, contacts and capital. Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia has an ambition to do activities, which might be helpful to make these conditions better.
 

Our activities in years 2010 - 2011

Slovak business angels network

Financing of start-up is one of the key problems when anybody wants to start a business. The results from analyzes of financial tools used by financing start-ups in Slovakia showed, that there is no real chance to gather venture capital for companies in their early stage. In foreign countries the lack of capital for start-ups is solved by the existence of Business Angels networks.

Slovak business angels network (SBAN) is an informal initiative of the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia, National Agency for development of small and medium Enterprises, and Hospodárske noviny (Economic daily). SBAN was established in 2011 as the first business angels network in Slovakia. SBAN associates prominent, especially Slovak entrepreneurs and managers, who are interested in investing their experiences, time and money into innovative business ideas.  More than 20 investors joined the network and are waiting for the projects of young people.

YEAS goal in the field of angel investing are: 

• To increase awareness of entrepreneurs about venture capital topics
• To create system of harvesting ideas on on-going base
• To provide consulting by business planning
• To create a meeting platform for investors (business angels) and entrepreneurs
• To provide an assistance by the investment process
• To present successful companies financed by venture capital

Global Entrepreneurship Week

Global entrepreneurship week (GEW) is a series of events promoting entrepreneurship, organized   in 120 countries.  YEAS was the second time involved in organizing events within GEW.

YEAS participates regulary in activities which are held in Slovakia during Global Entrepreneurship Week. In 2010 it was the conference "Window into the World of Business", the competition "Elevator Pitch of Slovak technical university students", the conference "Entrepreneurial skills as key competence in education and training".

Thanks to our initiative, in 2011 it extended outside of Bratislava.YEAS within GEW organized 3 events consisting of lectures and workshop in Bratislava, Žilina and Košice. This year’s topics of the global entrepreneurship week were
creative entrepreneurship, commercialization and financing innovations, visual communication of start-ups and  doing business beyond the borders of Slovakia. 

Inspirational business ideas

Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia and business portal podnikajte.sk celebrated in 2011 the first anniversary of the series of inspirational business ideas. Every Thursday we bring one inspirational business idea on the portal podnikajte.sk that works abroad. The series in 2011 brought inspiration in different branches from doing business in gastronomy, through bicycles to paintings generated from the human voice.

Survey about obstacles in business of young people and young entrepreneurs’ needs

Survey of the needs of young entrepreneurs in Slovakia and the obstacles in their business activity, which YEAS conducted in 2011, focused on identifying the basic problems of young entrepreneurs with related analysis of the barriers preventing development of entrepreneurship of young people in Slovakia.

The survey was conducted to identify perceptions and attitudes of young people towards entrepreneurship, to analyze the causes of this condition, to evaluate bottlenecks in the early stages of the business activity through hindsight, to identify differences in attitudes towards entrepreneurship in terms of different groups of respondents, to analyze information resources, information quality and efficiency of their provision and use, to evaluate the perception of supporting programs and analyze information about them and identify proposals for the amendment and increase availability of  supporting programs in areas of direct and indirect support for young entrepreneurs. 

Management club  

YEAS began in September 2011 with a cycle of informal mentoring meetings and discussions on "How to make a small single member company a big and successful one. The first management club management on September 29, 2011
with the topic “When we can think about business development”. The second meeting was held on November 3,  2011 and was bearing the name “The first employees in my company”. Management club is held in Bratislava, and the event is regularly accompanied by a business coach Rudolf Lukačka, who in 14 years built the company Elas s.r.o., with a turnover 70 milion €.

Managementclub participants can have discussions not only with R. Lukačka, but also with his guests. 

Lectures by successful entrepreneurs

YEAS is organizing and co-organizing lectures of successful Czech and Slovak entrepreneurs, who presented their business success story to young people. These lectures were attended by more than 7000 participants in 2010 a 2011.