Abstract:

The paper aims to map start-up segment in the Czech Republic. The theoretical part works with the research questions “How to define start-up? What is basic characteristics of start-up ventures?”. Also, sustainable elements of start-up activities are discussed, since the start-up activity is, with increasing potential, considered as an important answer to many social and environmental issues. The empirical part opens the research question “How much do we know about the start-up segment in the Czech Republic?”. This part identifies and analyses a sample of Czech start-ups with the ambition to clarify their overall characteristics including the effort to map their approach to sustainability as a new and important trend in entrepreneurship and society in general. The paper used a mixed method of research, desk research and quantitative research is provided. The added value of the presented research is threefold (a) a discussion about definition criteria and characteristics of start-ups (b) an identification of the current structure of researched sample of start-up companies in the Czech Republic and (c) a suggestion for creation of start-up's database and monitoring of selected aspects. The main empirical findings provide valuable information about Czech start-up ventures together with comparison to available European start-ups data and highlight that it is necessary to continue collecting information about start-ups to fill in the gap in weak information database. Information such as a profile of the company, product/service, approach to sustainable business elements, funding, start-up support and financial indicators has to be collected systematically. The suggestion for future work, based on the provided desk and empirical research, is to create start-up database, monitor selected aspects including recent trends, such as approach to sustainability.