peek-a-boo: Entrepreneurship and my escapades

This article was written for 'Vishwakarma', the annual magazine of Vivekananda Education Society's institute of Technology (VESIT). Apart from the editor's request, the article was written to promote the spirit on entrepreneurship in my capacity as co-founder and promoter of The VESIT Entrepreneurship Cell (tVEC) established in Feb,2008.
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Since the start of Feb,2008, there has been a lot of ‘buzz’ about entrepreneurship in the lands of VESIT. The launch and inception of The VESIT Entrepreneurship Cell (tVEC) finally took place after nearly four years of float-hood. Does it mean that VESIT has been hit by the entrepreneurial wave that’s spreading the world over? Have VESITians discovered a new career alternative that is poised to aid India becoming the next superpower?

The answer to those questions depends on the attributes of the aforementioned ‘buzz’. I decided to mingle with fellow VESITians to find out what exactly were they thinking about tVEC after the various smses, emails and word of mouth messages that were sent across inviting them to join in for a couple of activities and to apply for tVEC Associate without a formal orientation. Here are a few responses in random order:

“I got a 70% and the highest in my class is 78%.I don’t think I should engage myself into any activity now onwards.”
“I want to join in as an associate for tVEC, can you tell me something about this ‘society’ and what exactly is entrepreneurship?”
“Would I get a job through this organisation?”
“Why should I join in, what’s in it for me?”
“Keep up the Good work!”
“I’d like to interview an entrepreneur; it’ll be like an IV!”
“My whole class is suddenly obsessed with flash cards and CAT! Where are the wannabe entrepreneurs of our batch really? Are there any at all here?”
“Aspiring for a better life is an entrepreneurial quality. I guess the whole class is on the right track.”

This experience taught me the importance of having FAQs on the website(tvec.vesit.edu), which was achieved immediately. However, this space should be used for a better purpose and so I’d rather focus on the brighter picture: A peek-a-boo on entrepreneurship and my escapades.

Enterpreneur:
Microsoft®Encarta ® defines him to be an individual who sets up and finances new commercial enterprises to make a profit; but I’d like to differ and define him as an individual who creates value and win-win situations by taking risks to optimise his resources. There is more than one way in which the term entrepreneurship has been defined, but each definition caters to the central idea of value creation.

I have an Idea but the bulb wont glow:

Entrepreneurship is often restricted to starting up a venture, so the first obstacle faced has to do with the idea. A student, who got four IIM interview calls, couldn’t see a point in associating himself with an entrepreneurship cell because he doesn’t have an idea. I think this guy represents a fair chunk of the student population who stop because of lack of ideas. The irony popped out when Vishal Prabhukhanolkar (Director, TenADay.co.in, Quetzal Online) told me about the fact that most students ,making it to a top B School interview, express their desire to be entrepreneurs when asked about their near future plans ( and the others are trained to say so). There is indeed some ‘cool’ associated with entrepreneurship if it is the ideal career alternative, at least for an interview. We’ll look into this at a later point.
A famous adage goes like “When you are thinking of an idea, someone is already implementing it.”

It sounds very smooth on the first read but has loads of experience stored behind it; a few weeks back, I learnt this the hard way. My exasperation was heavily exaggerated when I saw my book trading portal concept (designed for VESIT), being implemented in Georgia Tech University and now graduating into a Facebook Application. I dug out the pamphlet that we had distributed to test the market 2 years back; the promotional contents also resembled each other. The next thing that struck me after this adage is a common piece of advice that every entrepreneur gives: ‘Seize the opportunity, and implement the idea’ i.e. don’t wait for the bulb to glow.

The above example also shows that starting up is not all about having an idea. (Four years of rigorously referring to’ substandard textbooks’ gives us a fair tip about getting ideas.)

Network to Connect and Collaborate:

An intriguing attribute of entrepreneurs is their ability to interact and build relationships on the go. This inherent characteristic differentiates them from those who lack the mindset. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia promoted the culture of collaboration (commercially known as user-generated content) in his recent visit to Mumbai. It is this collaborative effort that led to an avalanche in the accumulation of information that each of us use even for mundane causes. The habit of collaborating and growing is very prominent amongst entrepreneurs, which is contradictory to the bureaucratic introductions. All it takes these days is a couple of clicks on ‘Linked in’ and you get your man. tVEC is experimenting with tVECTribe, an online virtual network to facilitate collaboration amongst students, alumni and faculty (tvectribe.vesit.edu) .

Timing the Plunge | Should I work for some time?:

The idea looks awesome. You think it is the need of the hour. The team is pepped up. The finance jugaad is not a worry. The picture is rosy, yet there are doubts .It’s absolutely human and normal to feel so. The big question is to worship Nike (‘just do it’) or give a second thought?
How one tackles this dilemma depends on the strength of the entrepreneur’s character. If you keep thinking twice, you might find your idea in a Georgia Tech. On the other hand if you ‘just do it’, then there is a chance of meeting the fate of ‘aTEEtude Inc.’-another escapade!

I floated this venture with two friends: a designer from Sir JJ Institute of Art and a management undergraduate. We provided designing solutions in paper projects and T-shirts and set our eyes to compete with greats like Tantra and design sweatshirts for every college/university. Just out of the 12^th grade, starting up was more of a glamorous fad than a well thought of plan; it had more to do with the cool, associated with advertising and branding than the much required supply chain building. We realised our follies and tried to improvise; bagged a few orders (including my class t-shirt) and moved at a slow rate; but it faded away, it had to, as it was just a passing fad that taught us a few tricks.

‘Floating the idea is an essential tool to test it’
I experienced this while working on my ventures and interning at start ups. My most recent intern stint was at MagNet Technologies, a 10 year old start-up, where I was evaluating the techno commercial feasibility of a VOIP based enterprise telephony system- Another shot at float- to- test; but the here I got to learn a set of seasoned tricks for testing the feasibility of the idea.

The underlying idea is to get hands on experience. Practical learning (entrepreneurial or academic) doesn’t happen reading TechMax Publications or Vidyalankar notes, it is via work experience (internships and floating ventures) that one learns the tricks of the trade; moreover they also help you in evaluating your future path. The question is whether to learn driving in your own car or at the training school?

Virgin Mobile

"VIRGIN'S GOT MOBILE FOR IT'S NAMESAKE"

That would have been an apt headline if most of Indian youth were yet to have their tryst; but nevertheless theyll have their tryst with a VIRGIN now.

Sir Richard Branson, the man known for exhibhitting a brilliant combination of entrepreneurship with a taste for the adrenaline pumping adventures, once again suprises the masses with what seems to be the next big thing in consumer comunication.

Virgin Mobile was launched just a month ago and with what style! I heard that Branson did a bungee jump from aobove the Hilton Towers with a masisve Virgin logo as his backdrop. Thats how you welcome your guest- show them how happy you are to see them; by literally jumping (no sarcasm).

The more intriguing aspect about this uber cool brand targetted at the youth is the schemes it offers. One hplan that caught my eye is 'The Simple Plan'
Cost : Rs 99
Call Rate:
outgoing - Rs 1per min for the 1st 2 mins in a day. Rs 0.50 per min from the 3rd min onwards.
incoming- free + GET PAID to get calls at 10 paisa per minute!!

Now that's what a plan should be like and you call it a simple plan- too kewl!
(Technically if the cost of the plan is to be borne on a monthly basis, then the incoming profits get settled for; but nevertheless the outgoing is quite a bargain)

Surfing over their website I came across the Jobs link and one of the criteria for a prospective job seeker is :
'Drive them Crazy: The competition. We like driving them crazy. Can you do that? Can you play a part in creating offers so unique even we din’t hear of them earlier. We like setting trends and not following them. And that’s what we want - trendsetters."

The attitude, the branding, tv commercials and print ads look in pretty good shape,taste and place. I definitely see Virgin mobile taking over the young Indian market ahead of the other CDMA (and GSM too) operators.

DESI NEWS(read ABUSE) CHANNELS

Yesterday I was surfing through almost all the channels listed in the acceptable spectrum for my 20 year old Onida with a desire to get a glimpse of Robocon 2008 on Sahyadri (now you know why I had to surf hard). I happened to pause at three Hindi News Channels : News 24, Aaj Tak and India TV.

News 24 is the same channel that had Shah Rukh Khan spending almost an hour at their studio, trying to understand (read: raising his eyebrow),for a promotional channel-launch gig in its initial days. They were trying hard to show how different they would remain from the other Commercial News channels.

Aaj Tak, (I had an impression) was pretty decent until 'kal tak'
Oh and India TV, lets not get in there; they deserve and entire post.

The basis of classifying these channels into a common bracket is because of the type of news they were broadcasting at the same time (when I needed to locate Sahyadri urgently)

SO what was that intriguing piece of news?
Channel 1:
Irfan Pathan extends his stay in Australia because it seems he has found his soulmate over ther in a 19 year old engineerig student in Cannberra.
Next, they interviewed one of his friends to ask how he feels to know Irfn has found some one in Australia; the friend was a footage lover and he spoke as if he had just released a big budget bollywood flick
The backdrop video was mercilessly looped and made me feel hazy so i flipped the chaneln to land on another hindi news channel.

Channel 2:
BREAKING NEWS!!! Sreesanth has expressed his feelings of love to Priyana Chopra. We've got hold of a tape whose authenticity we are not sure of (but we'd still love to spend some freely available air time to boost our TRPs)
The tape was then played. I heard it for the fun of it; fliped the channel when they began analysing the tape

Channel 3:
Yuvraj Singhs heart has been broken. He has split from the new kid on block-Bollywood, Depika Padukone (her pic with Ranbir Kapur is flashed now). After his split from (another actress) Yuvraj seemed to settle down, his family also had approved of the girl, but now its all over.
In such a situation,Yuvraj would now sing the song "Oye Raju pyaar na kariyoo kariyo,dil toot jaata hai" the song played in the backdrop and I remembered something : I was hunting for Sahyadri!

Immidiately the Auto search option was selected more due to the fear of stumbling across another Desi News channel; lets do them some branding 'Abuse Channel'

Jumbo King takes on Mcdonalds

I came across this print ad over the window pane in a Churchgate fast the other day.
The print ad is from Jumbo King. The branded vada pav vendor seems to have rolled up his sleeve to match it up with Ray Croc's networking burger franchisee. I had once spoken to Ms Gupta (founder of Jumbo King) regarding an event sponsorship and she politely declined, emphasising that they target the railway commuters and promote their brand much in and around the railway stations. I can say , they have lived upto the claim , but branded themselves around the Mcdonald's theme.

Looking at the red and yellow theme of the print ad above very few would be reminded of McDonald's, but moving ahead to the tag line "always loved it!" with an inverted "M" from McDonalds; there would be very few who would not be reminded of the burger brand that is currently using the tag line "I'm loving it!"
After 4 crore vada paavs (burp!) being sold, do we get to see another desi -multinational acquisition?

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.

PRATIBIMB ‘08

- FestBitch

If you heard the chants of “Aamchi aai tumchi aai, Veermata Jijabai” on the 1st and 2nd of Feb this year, then you probably were hanging around in Matunga, in the vicinity of VJTI. The sounds were getting ‘reflected’ from Pratibimb , the annual intercollegiate cult fest of VJTI, that saw over 15 colleges participating. The crowd was low in number but the VJTIans certainly knew how to dhamaal. This year, Pratibimb manifested a lot of creative events spread across various domains and they were all pretty smoothly managed.

Day 1 saw people running around the campus playing detective in the event called F.B.I. While the classroom events were buzzing on and off with participants, the quadrangle looked pretty empty (see pic). Mega events like The Apprentice (similar to the one by Trump and there was some CEO judging a round too!) and Press conference kept the participants busy for both the days. Press conference tested the journo-capability of the participant by means of tasks ranging from debating, attending a press conference and acting elite journos in a (M)UN session :shooting queries to the delegates in order to write a report. The quadrangle was catering to mega events like solo singing and blast of bands contest; however the lack of crowd in a decent number just made it look like an ordinary event during the afternoon. However, the few people were evacuated from the quadrangle to enable security check for the blast of bands in the evening. As usual, the quadrangle was arranged to divide the guys and girls into physically isolated regions, with the section behind occupied by the impulsive dancers. The contest saw a few amateur bands trying hard to rock the crowd, but the VJTIians ain’t that easy to please. ‘Ehsaas’ , a 3 day old band, bagged the trophy given to them by members of the band Talaash who were judging the contest. Later the MC introduce 64-bits as an ‘angrezi band’ for those left behind by the ‘angrez’ (did someone talk about globalisation?)However, the treat of the day was Talaash, they rocked the juntaa to the core.

Day2 marked the continuation of Press conference, The apprentice and the culmination of other events. The crowd wasn’t seen in the quadrangle until the evening, so participants of events like the personality contest missed the desired crowd encouragement .The MUN club of VJTI had organised the VJ MUN which saw the session of the security council on day 2.The event was brilliantly planned and executed ; in fact, at first sight, the conference room seemed like the actual UN council conference room( maybe because I haven’t seen the actual one for real )The delegate of USA from RJIT won the event bagging a crystal-glass trophy and some goodies. The evening was euphoric! The solo and group dances were won by some scintillating performances from VESIT. The catch of the event came in the end: NEON DANCE! You should have been there to see the awesomely unbelievable performances by BES College,Borivali and Tolani college who jointly won the event. BES’ performance was centred on FIDO DIDO and they live performed the ping-pong matrix video from Youtube in addition to the triple role dance by Fido. Tolani’s theme was based on the co-existence of aliens and humans , but the crowd was turned on the moment they performed the MARIO! An entire level of Mario , including the 1ups,kicking the mushrooms, speed ups, headers to the ?-bricks all synced with the original background sound of the game was performed live!

Overall Pratibimb ’08 was a fun place to be and has certainly come ahead from its previous versions. Known faces like Arzoo Govitrikar, members ofAasmaa , Ruslan(MP3 fame) etc were seen during the fest. However, there exists some scope to improve: Most events were judged and headed by second/third year students and VJTIians were allowed to participate; this obviously was the reason why external participants cribbed of biased results. The MCs can be given a crash course on anchoring a ‘mega’ event with due emphasis on learning newer action words other than variations of ‘rock’. The prize money concerned a few participants, as the amount seemed to be too low to accept (for some).With such a varied kitty of events, a couple of Crossover events can certainly be implemented with very little brainstorming. Given the capability of the VJTI students, with these factors taken care of , Pratibimb surely looks to grow faster and get even more impactful with time.

copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks and boy luvarien.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are solely the author's and are subjective.They are not intended to influence,offend or hurt anybody living or dead.The articles may have a tendency to be satirical and or sarcastic.