I just returned from IIM-A after talking to students on ” Is a Startup right for them” and “Investors & Business Plans”. Beerud , CTO of Webaroo and earlier founder of e-Lance was also there and spoke on ” Start up: What it takes”.
IIM – A is thinking of having a business plan competition with a difference where few shortlisted firms would present to a panel of seed stage investors and try and close a seed round. Sounds like a good idea. Let them know what you think. The organizers of the “Entre” club read venturewoods.
Reflecting as I returned ( lot of time to reflect as my flight was delayed) I felt that the time may be right for IIM – A and other management institutes to do a one year entrepreneurship course which gives a certification like an MBA. A large component would be getting your business of the ground. Comments ?
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I totally agree with Krish. The opportunity cost of enrolling in an expensive course and then starting up is way too high.
Entrepreneur is already short of money. Why will he enroll for an expensive course? Moreover you cann’t equip him with all the weapons that will make him invincible.
A true entrepreneur knows this and that gives him another reason for nt considering this option actively.
IMHO if B-school wants to do something for startups they can ask students to do internships with the startups.
I think a one year program is a great idea, but the selection of the particpants is very important. To build a startup you need a few people who are very good at what they do and they all need to know how to survive in a little boat that gets constantly rocked by the world around in.
The technical folks need to be able to architect without fleshout requirement documents. The Sales folks need to live with unstable products, often complete absence of marketing and next to 0 credibility, the CEO needs to be able to juggle the investors and customers etc etc. And everyone needs to be able to constantly align the focus and do the minimum required consuming the minimum reosurces.
I dont think any business curriculum in the world do does justice to perparing people for such an enviorment and I do beleive that with the right set of people in the program it will yield a decent startup or two every year
Regarding the Business plan competition in IIM-A, I think it’s a great idea. I am not sure what took them so long. I would like to see your competition is open to every one, not just IIM alumni’s. (Well, I guess I should take this opportunity to rant about the quality of online presence of IIM’s. It sad to see our top business schools with that kind of online presence. )
From all this discussion and what I understand about the current state of entrepreneur support system in India, I see a good opportunity for a for-profit venture. I think we would all agree that you just can’t teach entrepreneurship, all you can do is support and nurture them. I am sure there is a place for 1 year entrepreneurship programs and educational institutions can definitely find “customers” for their services but the real catalysts are Business plan competitions, 5-10 days entrepreneurship boot camps followed by a presentation to angels.
We need an entrepreneur to provide services to entrepreneurs…
What we need is something like Y-combinator in India, I do not know how successful these ppl are, but I believe if we have something on lines of these, it would really help budding entrepreneurs.
http://ycombinator.com/w2007.html
http://ycombinator.com/faq.html
http://ycombinator.com/
The gap between MBA completion date and job joining date can be utilized for such a course. 3 months course with focus on getting the prototype developed, getting the company incorporated and some training from subject matter experts (taxation, compliance, structuring compensation package for employees etc) and providing some business leads.
Sanjay, the program you refferd looks good on paper…any feedback from anyone who has participated?
Anyone know of any other such programs?