Friday, May 2, 2014

MBA / ENTREPRENEURSHIP SPECIAL................... New Ventures Graduating from IIMs


New Ventures Graduating from IIMs 

At least 20 graduates from Class of 2014 choose entrepreneurship over a regular job
 
When Tarun Tiwari, Akhil Malik, Paavan Nanda and Dharamveer Singh Chauhan passed out of IIM-Calcutta this month, they graduated with an MBA and a fledgling new business. Zostel, a chain of backpacker hostels for young travellers that the four of them started with three other friends last year, is fast growing into a fullfledged business. Two such hostels — offering a bed at less than .
`500 a night — are already open at Jodhpur and Jaipur. “At least 7 more hostels will come up in one year,” says Nanda. Zostel is getting good reviews on travel portals.
The seven of them started the venture with money pooled in from friends and family as well as the .
`20 lakh-odd they won in various business plan contests.
At least 20 IIM graduates from the Class of 2014 have stood down from this placement season to launch their own ventures — everything from express bike washes to alternative investment funds, agricultural advisory firms and test preparation institutes. To name a few, Prakhar Bindal, also from IIMCalcutta, has started Axsiom.com, which helps companies acquire premium domain names and IIM-Indore’s Ashish Jain is in the final stages of R&D before launching an FMCG product.
Also, IIM-Indore’s Niraj Taksande has floated an engineering innovations company.
All of them graduated this year and chose entrepreneurship over a regular job.
The number of fresh IIM graduates opting to turn entrepreneurs is by no stretch of imagination big. Nor is there any guarantee that the few that have dared will succeed. Also, IIMs lag IITs when it comes to fresh graduates choosing entrepreneurship.
Nevertheless, the few new business ventures graduating from the IIM class of 2014 do need to be taken note of. Also, with IIMs offering incentives including deferred placement options to graduates choosing entrepreneurship, their tribe is bound to grow.
Most of the 20 entrepreneurs ET tracked opted for the policy which will allow them to sit for campus placements in the next couple of years in case their startups fail.
IIMs are also fostering entrepreneurship in other ways. Shaunak Chhaparia and Sushil Kumar, who are setting up a logistics venture, have been offered a co-working space at CIIE (Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship) at IIM-A. As many as 13 students from the 2014 batch at IIM-A have turned entrepreneurs.
“It bodes very well for both the entrepreneurial ecosystem and industry in India that some of the best quality talent from the top institutes wants to be entrepreneurs,” says Abhay Pandey, MD, Sequoia Capital India. “This trend has been gaining ground, and the change is very apparent too in terms of the startups that approach us these days –people have better
backgrounds and better experience.“
Adds Ashok Banerjee, dean (new initiatives and external relations) and coordinator, Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, IIM Calcutta: “The existence of an enabling ecosystem incubators and accelerators, angels and impact investors --has also encouraged management and engineering graduates to follow the entrepreneurial path.“
Still, it's not easy for IIM grads to walk away from an attractive job offer and opt for risky entrepreneurship.
“It's difficult to resist the lure of hundred thousand dollar salaries,“ says Bindal of Axsiom .com. “But I was dri ven by this need to build something of my own that people around me would re member me for.“
Over 150 companies from more than 40 countries have used Axsiom.com's servic es to buy premium do main names, he says. He started with a Rs 3 lakh investment raised from family and friends.
Taksande from IIM Indore didn't bother taking the deferred placement option. He has started an engineering innovations company based out of Mumbai with two friends. They have designed and manufactured an automatic two-wheeler wash system that can wash any motorcycle in under 5 minutes. “We are targeting motorcycle service centres, wash centres, petrol pumps, parking lots at malls/railway stations etc. We offer this service under the brand name Express Bike wash,“ says Takshande.
“For these students, having their own start-up is like a self-purification process. It is about adversity and one becomes stronger,” says Sharad Sharma, angel investor and former head of Yahoo India R&D. Sharma helped launch iSpirt, a think-tank for software product companies. “Even if their startup doesn’t take off, these experiences help the resume. More employers want candidates to have startup experience on the resume,” he adds.
Money, fame and independence aren’t the only driving factors. Several of these entrepreneurs are also eager to do something for society. Snehil Basoya, an IIM-Ahmedabad graduate has set up Gram Bazaar, a for-profit social enterprise working with farmers and local entrepreneurs to introduce new crops and improved agricultural practices through intensive crop planning and extension services. He will soon implement a pilot project in Alwar district. “We will also enable farmers to get higher remuneration as well as create job opportunities for rural youth by processing and marketing these new products,” says Basoya, who has a partner in Arushi Mittal, a B-Tech in civil engineering from IIT-Delhi.
Basoya’s IIM-A batch mate Karunamoorthi P wants to help school students learn visually and become more creative. His venture is to build model schooling systems with a unique set of learning and teaching methodologies that would prepare students for an entrepreneurial future. Also starting out in the education space is Alosies George of IIM Calcutta, who’s started GeorgePrep, a competitive test preparation institute. Currently, he’s training aspirants only for CAT, but plans to extend that to GRE and GMAT in the near future.
SREERADHA D BASU & DEVINA SENGUPTA TNN 140422








C

No comments: