{Needs / Problems Summary}
Whether through lack of experience or lack of monetary funds, students don't see a path to converting their current project or venture to a full-time startup. There is currently no good program to bridge this gap. Moving to the bay area can be a logisitical nightmare and it only serves as a distraction to the start-up founders. The students that decide to transition to full-time start-ups experience a longer than necessary learning curve because they are going through an incredibly complex process on their own. The drop-off rate from student start-up to full-time start-up and the number of start-ups that are never attempted is too high.
During the stage before major financing is an incredibly fragile time for start-ups. There are a lot of ways for start-ups to fail that have nothing to do with the merit of their idea. Moving the start-up to the bay area gives the start-up the best chance to raise capital but shortens their runway to a potentially dangerous length. Some start-ups never move to the bay area to seek financing to protect their start-up given the fragility. Dangerously short runways and not getting the capital required are two reasons that UMD start-ups are not reaching maturatity at the rate that they should.
There is currently no hub for UMD in the bay area. Currently, events that the university holds happen in bars and various other places but this is scattered and not as effective outreach as it could be with a central location. Many alumni that have moved to the San Francisco bay area have lost connection with UMD.
Through organizations like Terrapin Hackers and Startup Shell and events like Bitcamp, a strong maker / doer community has formed on UMD's campus. Upon graduation, students within these communities need to get a job to support themselves financially and leave a lot of great work unfinished. A lot of times these jobs to allow students to realize their full potential and serve as a regression from the work they were doing as a student.
UMD invests a lot into its student entrepreneurs while they are students but the support immediately drops off after graduation. This support and investment goes to waste if there isn't a follow through program.
Being the founder of a high-growth company requires a lot of specific skills that have yet to be quantified and can only be learned through experience. Students can gain a little experience while running a start-up part-time in college but this does not compare to running a start-up full-time and focusing on high-growth. Raising capital is an example of a skill that people are ineffective at without the proper guidance, networks, and practice. After graduation, the price of this knowledge is the cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
To improve UMD's standing, the college must be able to recruit top talent. This means that UMD needs to be consistently innovating new ways to help students achieve their max potential as their value proposition.