From Hackathons to Venturethons: Rethinking How We Teach Entrepreneurship

By Assoc. Prof. Dr. Artūras Jurgelevičius — Founder of Venturethon, Researcher in Entrepreneurship, and Venture Builder

The Journey That Led to Venturethon

For the past seven years, I’ve been teaching students about startup building, entrepreneurship, and innovation -  helping hundreds of aspiring founders turn ideas into tangible concepts.

During this time, I’ve also organized numerous hackathons across universities and innovation ecosystems. They were exciting, intense, and creative -  but over time, I started noticing a repeating pattern:

• Teams would build prototypes over a weekend,

• Present a polished pitch deck,

• Win prizes… and then most of those ideas would fade away after the event.

Hackathons are great for energy and creativity, but they rarely develop long-term entrepreneurial skills or real ventures. They focus on coding fast or pitching well, not on validating business models or understanding markets.

Combining my academic background, research in challenge-based learning, and hands-on experience in venture building, I felt something was missing — a bridge between hackathon excitement and real startup execution.

That’s how Venturethon was born — a global business model validation competition where students don’t just build ideas, they build ventures.

What is Venturethon?

Venturethon is a challenge-based entrepreneurship program and competition designed to transform ideas into validated business models.

Unlike hackathons, Venturethon is not about how fast you can build an app — it’s about how effectively you can test your assumptions, find your first users, and prove there’s real demand.

Each Venturethon cycle follows a structured, step-by-step process:

1. Identify and define your customer segment.

2. Validate the problem through interviews and data.

3. Estimate your market size and timing.

4. Build and test an MVP (minimum viable product).

5. Experiment with messaging, channels, and pricing.

6. Track retention and early traction.

7. Pitch your validated business model — not just your idea.

It’s a full journey from concept to real venture creation — guided by mentors, using tools like the Venturethon Business Model Validation Canvas, and rooted in experiential learning.

Why We Need to Shift from Hackathons to Entrepreneurial Skill Development

Most hackathons reward speed. Venturethon rewards evidence.

• In hackathons, students often guess what users want.

• In Venturethon, students prove what users want through validation and testing.

• Hackathons end with a slide deck.

• Venturethon ends with a validated venture ready for acceleration or incubation.

This shift represents the future of entrepreneurship education — from idea competitions to learning through venture creation.

It teaches critical 21st-century skills:

- Problem-solving and resilience.

- Customer discovery and market validation.

- Collaboration, communication, and adaptability.

- Real entrepreneurial mindset — thinking globally, acting locally.

Why Entrepreneurship Educators Should Integrate Venturethon

As educators, our mission is not just to inspire creativity but to build entrepreneurial capability — the ability to identify opportunities, validate solutions, and create sustainable impact.

Integrating Venturethon into entrepreneurship curricula offers multiple benefits:

1. Challenge-Based Learning at Its Core Venturethon is designed around real-world challenges. Students work on genuine problems — often provided by companies or institutions — which makes learning relevant and applied.

   
   

2. Experiential Learning and Skill Development Students don’t just learn theory; they practice customer interviews, design MVPs, and make data-driven decisions. This is learning by doing — with accountability and mentorship.

   
   

3. Global Network, Local Action Venturethon connects universities worldwide under a shared mission: think globally, act locally. Each local Venturethon contributes to a global map of student innovation, where teams can showcase validated ventures to investors, accelerators, and industry partners.

   
   

4. Entrepreneurship as a Research Platform For academics, Venturethon is a living laboratory — a space to study behavior, innovation patterns, and entrepreneurial learning in real time.
   

5. Sustainability and Real Outcomes Unlike short-lived hackathon projects, Venturethon creates a pathway for teams to continue developing their ideas, access incubation, or even attract seed funding.

A Call to Educators and Students Worldwide

The future of entrepreneurship education is not in pitching ideas, but in building ventures that solve real problems.

As educators, we can transform our classrooms into launchpads. As students, you can transform your learning into a real entrepreneurial journey.

Venturethon School offers programs, bootcamps, and a global competition format to make this shift possible — helping universities integrate challenge-based entrepreneurship education that drives measurable results.

Together, we can move from short-term creativity to long-term entrepreneurial impact.

It’s time to think globally, act locally — and validate our way into the future.

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Assoc. Prof. Dr. Artūras Jurgelevičius

Founder of Venturethon

Entrepreneur, Researcher in Entrepreneurship, and Venture Builder