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GUESSS India 2023 Report

The maiden effort to survey Indian students' Entrepreneurial Spirit
Guesss India 2023 - Report
This report marks a significant milestone in our journey to understand and foster student entrepreneurship in India.
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33%

Indian Students in process of starting up.

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4.8%

Indian Students already running an active startup.

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14%

Indian Students planning to Startup after graduation.

Why GUESSS India?

The primary goal of GUESSS India is to explore and understand the entrepreneurial intentions, attitudes, and behaviours of Indian students. This survey is conducted across the Indian higher educational institutions, encompassing a diverse range of students from various academic disciplines and educational levels.
Student Entrepreneurial Intention

Foster entrepreneurship among Indian students by knowledge and resources for growth

Students Career Choice Intention

Create a knowledge hub to help aspiring student entrepreneurs take their first step toward starting a venture

University Entrepreneurship Climate

Assess the entrepreneurial spirit of Indian students through in-depth research initiatives

Message from the Country Delegate – GUESSS India

Dr. Puran Singh

Country Delegate, GUESSS India

Welcome to GUESSS India – the country chapter of the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS) initiative. This platform is dedicated to understanding and advancing student entrepreneurship in India through rigorous research, thought leadership, and stakeholder engagement.

Our mission is to capture the entrepreneurial spirit, aspirations, and challenges faced by student entrepreneurs across Indian higher education institutions. Through national-level surveys and knowledge dissemination efforts, we aim to generate insights that are valuable for educators, policymakers, incubation centers, industry leaders, and most importantly, student entrepreneurs.

At the heart of GUESSS India is a commitment to fostering an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurial thinking and action among students. Whether you’re a student, faculty member, researcher, or ecosystem enabler, we invite you to explore our data, contribute your perspectives, and collaborate with us in building a more inclusive and vibrant entrepreneurial landscape in India.

We thank all the participating students, institutional partners, campus ambassadors, and collaborators who make this initiative possible. Your continued support helps us deepen our understanding and amplify the impact of student entrepreneurship in India.

Let’s continue this important conversation—and work together to shape the future of India’s entrepreneurial generation.

A knowledge hub for Student Entrepreneurship

Neha Jaswal highlights the often-overlooked challenge of team dynamics in student startups, revealing how early enthusiasm gives way to instability—and why building aligned, committed teams is crucial for venture success....
Hari Babu underscores the tech-first mindset of students that often leads to creating solutions in search of a problem, emphasizing the need for a user-first approach in entrepreneurship....
Devanshi Thakur highlights the transformative role of Indian universities in fostering entrepreneurship, showcasing how government policies and university support systems are empowering students to balance academics with startup ventures....
Campus Ambassador Program

Discover the Entrepreneur in You

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The GUESSS India Campus Ambassador Program is live! It is a unique opportunity for students to develop leadership skills, get entrepreneurial exposure and connect with a vibrant community of changemakers.
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Our Partners

Frequently Asked Questions
The GUESSS India is a comprehensive survey on student entrepreneurship across India, conducted as part of the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS) initiative. It provides insights into the entrepreneurial intentions, activities, and perceptions of Indian students, benchmarking them against global peers.
The GUESSS survey is conducted biennially (every two years), allowing for longitudinal analysis to track changes in entrepreneurial intentions and activities over time. The next round of the GUESSS India Survey is scheduled for 2025, providing opportunities to observe trends and developments in student entrepreneurship.
GUESSS (Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students Survey) is a biennial global research project initiated by the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, in 2003. It aims to understand entrepreneurial intent, behavior, and influencing factors among students worldwide. In 2023, 57 countries participated in the survey, collecting data from more than 300,000 students.
GUESSS Cloud is a dedicated knowledge repository addressing key issues relevant to student entrepreneurship in India. It serves as a platform to generate knowledge that inspires entrepreneurial action, equipping students with insights, research, and expert opinions.
The GUESSS India 2023 Survey received responses from 13,896 students across 1298 higher education institutions in India, making it one of the most comprehensive studies on student entrepreneurship in the country.
The GUESSS India 2023 Survey was conducted using an online questionnaire distributed to students across 156 higher education institutions in India. The survey covered a wide range of questions aimed at understanding students’ career intentions, entrepreneurial activities, and perceptions of their university’s entrepreneurship climate.
The survey primarily targeted the Top 100 Institutions from the NIRF 2023 Innovation Category and 88 Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs). Additionally, several other higher educational institutions were included in the survey. Overall, students enrolled in 1298 Indian institutions provided their responses for the survey. The coverage includes universities, technical institutes, colleges, and other higher education establishments, ensuring a diverse representation of students from various academic backgrounds.
The survey utilized an online questionnaire distributed via institutional networks, social media channels, and strategic partners who had direct communication with Indian students. A network of on campus Campus-Ambassadors was leveraged by the survey team. The questionnaire consisted of a mix of multiple-choice questions, and Likert-scale rating questions to capture the data.
Students were classified as nascent entrepreneurs if they were in the process of starting a venture but had not yet generated consistent revenue for more than three months. Active entrepreneurs are those whose ventures have moved beyond the nascent stage and have been operational long enough to generate revenue and/or pay wages for at least three months.
The survey’s sample includes students from a diverse range of academic institutions, regions, and fields of study, ensuring that the data reflects the variety of experiences within India’s student population. The inclusion of both undergraduate and postgraduate students, across different types of institutions, helps provide a broad and representative dataset.
The report provides a detailed analysis of student entrepreneurial aspirations, highlighting opportunities and challenges in nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs in India. It helps universities, incubators, policymakers, and investors understand key trends and areas where more support is needed to turn entrepreneurial intent into successful ventures.
India ranks highly in terms of entrepreneurial intent and nascent venture activity among top startup economies. However, it lags behind its global peers, such as the US and Germany, in terms of active ventures – students running revenue-generating businesses. This reflects a strong entrepreneurial pipeline but also indicates the need for enhanced support to bridge the gap between intent and execution.
The report highlights the crucial role universities play in fostering entrepreneurship among students. It reveals that 63% of student entrepreneurs receive university support, and students rate the university entrepreneurship climate in India as highly positive (4.7/7). The findings offer universities a roadmap for enhancing their entrepreneurship curricula, programs, and incubation facilities to better support student ventures.
The report demonstrates the vast potential of India’s student entrepreneurs to contribute to the country’s startup ecosystem. With nearly one-third of students aspiring to become entrepreneurs within five years, the findings highlight the need for continued investment in education, incubation, and policy support to cultivate the next generation of successful founders.

The full report will be available for download following the official launch at ISBAcon 2024 in Hyderabad on October 18, 2024. For more information or to get a copy of the report, please visit www.guesssindia.in

Guesss India 2023 - Report
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GUESSS India 2023 Report

Guesss India 2023 - Report
This report marks a significant milestone in our journey to understand and foster student entrepreneurship in India.