There are several avenues available these days through which aspirants can realise their entrepreneurial aspirations
Being an entrepreneur and being a student are two separate things and require full-time attention and care. But the passionate youth of the country is no longer waiting to get its degrees before going ahead and launching its dream ventures. Interestingly, even business schools and corporate houses are encouraging the young minds to start off early and become successful student entrepreneurs.
Sameet Singh, Noel Sequeira and Amith George - are IT/computer engineering graduates from the University of Mumbai and hail from families of modest means with no business background. They founded Creative Riot in 2009, fuelled by the idea of building elegant, easy-to-deploy, usable applications to help IT departments effectively manage thousands of users. They are incubatees at the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. These three young minds took the plunge straight out of college, back in 2009. "Each of us individually had this desire to be an entrepreneur someday; but I don't think we'd have pursued it, had it not been for the opportunity that came our way - courtesy the 'Microsoft Imagine Cup', one of the world's premier student technology competitions. We participated in 2008 and represented India at the World finals in the ‘Interoperability Award' category, which we ended up winning. Our primary product is ‘Enpower' - which is a suite of plug and play tools for "centralised enterprise efficiency enhancement," they share their experience of becoming student entrepreneurs.
Rishabh Chopra, an ISB alumnus is another student entrepreneur who founded his company Transformative Learning Solutions, which offers products/services that provide personal development information based on Indian mythology and culture, and he markets them online around the world. "I decided to become an entrepreneur on returning from the Netherlands in 2008. After several years of working for organisations, I felt as though I wanted to test my own boundaries of creativity and courage to do something new and different, and entrepreneurship seemed to be the answer to both these thoughts. It is the greatest opportunity to create value for the different segments of society and receive value in return in terms of experience and the other additional gains. I had begun my venture shortly before beginning ISB, but yes, the real progression and structuring of the venture came while I was at the ISB," he expresses. His venture was incubated under the Entrepreneurship Development Initiative (EDI) at Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED) at the ISB.
Vipul Kasera, founder and director of CommuteEasy (CE) and LifeIsOutside (LIO) is yet another alumnus of ISB, now a full-time entrepreneur. While CommuteEasy is a car-sharing network to connect people who share the same route and timings, LifeIsOutside specialises in weekend getaways and short breaks. Talking about his journey as an entrepreneur, he shares, "I did have both CE and LIO running before joining ISB and while I was at ISB. Taking up a job post ISB was never on the agenda. The ISB MBA program helped in terms of building a strong fundamental managing foundation. It is also unparalleled from the networking point of view. It helped me build a powerful diverse network in a short period of time. The Entrepreneurship Development Initiative (EDI) programme at the ISB was like a driver-navigator relationship where you are firmly in the driver's seat and the EDI board and advisors act as efficient navigators guiding you along the way."
So, what makes student entrepreneurs successful? According to Mark D'Souza, director – student programmes at Microsoft India, "Increased industry support through special programmes for startups is certainly one reason behind the success of student entrepreneurs. Increased angel investor activity is helping to overcome some of the initial financial hurdles that startups typically face."
The youngsters of today dream big and do not want to waste any time in chasing their dreams. With business schools and corporates coming up with interesting programmes and initiatives, it is now becoming a smoother journey for these bright minds to go ahead and turn their dreams into a concrete reality.
- Yasmin Taj
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