CURRENT SUCCESS CRITERIA OF SOCIALLY-ORIENTED START-UPS IN INCUBATION STAGE

Purpose: The paper focus on important area of current entrepreneurship oriented on social impact and improvement of life with use of modern technologies. The aim of the paper is to identify current criteria of socially-oriented start-ups leading towards successful development of innovative entrepreneurship with use of new technologies based on qualitative research of start-up projects. Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected by means of a qualitative research of 17 start-up projects by means of content analysis carried out among project applications of organisations applying for start-up incubator. The projects were focused on social innovations with planned impact in the Czech Republic. For the analysis key words and short phrases were selected based on aim of the study to find approaches of socially oriented start-ups and their main areas of planned impact. Findings: The results of study have shown that key success criteria of successful start-up projects and entrepreneurship are: use of education and training, development, partners, theoretical mapping, use of expert help, use of concrete technologies, knowledge of project management, project functionality, personal interest in project delivery, efficiency of solution and use of psychological approaches. Research/practical implications: The results may be used in practice to identify current main focus areas of social impact and approaches of their achievement. The limits of the article can be deemed to consist in a relatively small sample; however, with respect to the relatively low number of social start-ups in the Czech Republic the sample can be described as sufficient. The research will continue further in order to deepen the knowledge about this phenomenon, i.e. methodology of adoption of innovations by target group and efficient approaches to scaling of the solution. Originality/value: The contribution of the article lies in general identification and evaluation of the areas of the sustainable development of social start-ups. Furthermore, practical contribution of this article lies in presenting the concrete results from real start-up projects in incubation stage. The results are important for development of new start-up ideas and project while their main efficient approaches are presented.