Young entrepreneurs from India

I recently spoke at at Vignan Vizag to a group of 300+ students from various stream. Two days later I delivered a similar talk at CBIT Hyderabad (it was great to share a chair with Dr. B.N. Reddy).

The event was organized by the entrepreneurship cell (a student body) of IIT Kharagpur. The management teams of the colleges were so innovative and forthcoming to promote the thinking system of the students as it relates to their future aspirations. I was asked to talk about entrepreneurship (originally Dr. Sashi Reddi (CEO, AppLabs) was asked to talk and he passed on the opportunity to showcase my thoughts on the topic). Here is some of what I did:

0. It was heavily sweating, so I removed my blazer and threw it away. I defined that as entrepreneurship :-). Knowing when to get rid of what you are doing and do something different, as long as you create some value out of it (in my case it was being able to stop sweating).


1. I told them that get serious about solving a problem in the world , big or small - instead of just dreaming of being an entrepreneur.


2. I gave overview of things to do (market research, idea to prototype homework, writing a business plan, a bit on trademarks and so on).

3. I encouraged the students to gift themselves a job (one which has an outcome, if not just taking salary), create something - gamble for an year at least after leaving the college. If you succeed - great, even otherwise you can get into a job with pride, deliver value in that job, quit that job later to deliver more value (keep repeating it as long as you can). I am not sure how it was received but that is what I could say to ignite aspirations. For the folks who are yet to complete the college, I asked them to prototype their ideas right now so that they have something to start with right after getting out of the college.

I spoke about how Dr. Sashi Reddi (CEO, AppLabs) paved path for my career, both when in job and even when I ventured out on my own. I gave an overview of acquisitions and some of the gotchas using my own story of ValueMinds/TestersDesk acquisition by AppLabs. A services company believing/investing in innovation and acquiring a product company - how many such stories have we heard in India?

Anyway, it was a very happy moment to influence some of the aspirant entrepreneurs (some of whom that may not know know they can solve some invisible problems too) .

After all, what else does India need? Young entrepreneurs. Who am I to talk about it? It will happen. Keep watching.

Some media coverage is attached below-