I'm continually impressed with the initiatives and resources I see from local universities to help startups. These right on are not dinky to students, since every university wants and needs the real world exposure and palpate of entrepreneurs who already have credibility in the marketplace.
Here is a short list of the areas where you should be able to find help:
1. Looking an idea. Universities are brimming with new ideas from their students, their professors, and their own research, but need entrepreneurs from the real world to decide which ones are viable in the marketplace. Start by contacting a professor in your area of interest or expertise.
2. Explore and development. Take benefit of the labs, equipment, and skilled students ready and Looking for real world problems to research. They are likely to be able to get grants to fund development for you in strategic focus areas, like alternative energy sources, that would otherwise cost you many thousands of dollars.
3. Enterprise plan creation. Every university has educational courses and can supply assistance on creating your preliminary plan. Look for evening courses, or special programs for entrepreneurs, like the Technopolis agenda mentioned below, ready to non-students.
4. Funding. Don't look here for speculation capital levels of funding, but for real early-stage government grants and entrepreneurship incentives are ready from endowments and state funds. Collaborative efforts with companies, like Siemens speculation Capital, are ready for certain technology and focus areas.
5. Legal advice. Most universities have some sort of an entrepreneurship legal clinic, to address concerns like security of intellectual property. These may be ready online, and are usually staffed by covering lawyers working on a 'pro bono' basis with the school. Start by contacting the school entrepreneurship retain organization.
6. Looking a team. If you need part-time engineers to build a prototype, you can all the time find high-caliber grad students with the latest law ready to work. If you need experienced executives, the best professors and entrepreneurship staff will have the contacts you need into the local talent pool.
7. Mentoring. Similar to Looking experienced executives, you can use university contacts who do consulting in the real world. Most schools also raise relationships with local executives "Entrepreneurs in Residence" whom they use to lecture in Mba courses, judge trainee Enterprise plans, and assign as mentors for spinoffs (I am one of these).
For example, I live in the Phoenix area, near Arizona State University. They have any "outreach" programs to help startups, together with their Technopolis agenda to train you for a nominal fee on how to write Enterprise plans, supply menagerial mentors for six months, and supply office space at Skysong during your gestation period.
Other engineering departments at Asu often supply grad students to build prototypes, and even speculation funding for certain projects. In the last year alone, they worked in concert with the Science Foundation of Arizona to distribute .6 million dollars in Innovation speculation Grants throughout Arizona in 3 strategic focus areas: data and Communications Technology, Sustainable Systems, and Biomedical Research.
I have any contacts I use at Asu, and I've enjoyed doing some guest lecturing in their Mba agenda on the practical issues that every startup should be aware of. Let me know if you need a connection in this area, and don't forget to peruse comparable resources in your own geography.
Universities Love Startups
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