The authors investigate motivational peculiarities of the participants of the university project targeted to train future entrepreneurs. The sampling group includes 36 students of the young entrepreneur school of Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod. At the data acquisition stage a situational interview was utilized, the data processing was carried out by means of content-analysis as well as descriptive statistics, cross-tables 2x2. The investigation results revealed the willingness and motivational structure of the university project participants to work on different stages of organizational development, correlation of positive and negative as well as intrinsic and extrinsic motives. Special attention is devoted to studying motivational peculiarities at the business forming stage which is the first key for future entrepreneurs.