It’s a great time to be a young entrepreneur in India. The Government of India has launched several schemes and initiatives to empower youngsters to pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career option. The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has been set up to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation across India’s schools, colleges and research institutions. The government’s flagship program has established ‘Atal Tinkering Laboratories’ in schools nationwide to encourage young minds to think along creative lines and find unique solutions to India’s longstanding societal issues.
India’s campuses are also hotbeds of innovation. Premier institutes like the IITs, IIMs, BITS Pilani and Ashoka University, among others, have in-house incubation cells where student entrepreneurs are nurtured to take their idea from concept to the market.
The opportunities are endless for India’s bright young innovators.
On International Youth Day, we present to you the inspirational stories of five college entrepreneurs who are raring to make a mark on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The youngsters are enrolled in LaunchPad, a specially curated program under our T-Tribe initiative. LaunchPad imparts key entrepreneurial concepts and skills to college students, to enable them to launch successful careers in entrepreneurship.
Let’s see what these young founders have to say about their startup journey that has just begun…
Kaushik Apoori
College: Vignana Bharathi Institute of Technology
Degree enrolled in: B.Tech in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Year: Second year
Q. What got you interested in entrepreneurship?
I always wanted to be part of a challenging environment where I utilised my skills to achieve my career goals. I was attracted to entrepreneurship from my school days, but wasn’t too knowledgeable about this area. My engineering course, the pandemic and the resulting circumstances pushed me towards entrepreneurship and motivated me to launch a startup.
Q. Who are your entrepreneurial role models?
My role model is my uncle who is an HR Manager in an IT company. Observing him and his innovative approach to work from childhood piqued my interest in innovation and entrepreneurship. My other role model is my father who taught and encouraged me to develop an interest in management.
Q. Why did you apply for T-Tribe’s LaunchPad program? What do you hope to accomplish through this program?
I learnt about this program in my engineering college. I thought LaunchPad would fine-tune my entrepreneurial vision and help me and my team members to implement our business plan.
Q. How has LaunchPad proved beneficial to further your entrepreneurial aspirations? Please share the key learnings and benefits from the program to date.
LaunchPad has helped me build a perfect idea and form a solid team. The program also aided me in designing an appropriate business model and mapping out the future strategy for our business. I was able to network with corporates and industry experts and identify ideas we could scale into a business.
Q. The government has launched several initiatives to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and skill development among India’s youth. Are you satisfied with the strides we’ve made in this regard or do you think more should be done for young entrepreneurs?
The government’s schemes and initiatives to promote youth entrepreneurship are impressive. I have no recommendations to make at the moment. Every college and school should have a support mechanism like T-Tribe to encourage youngsters to become entrepreneurs. Also, entrepreneurship should be offered as a separate curriculum in school to nurture the raw talent in the country’s classrooms.
Q. Who do you count as mentors in the early stages of building your business plan?
Any individual who offers me sound guidance to implement my entrepreneurial vision in the early stages of building my company.
Q. Why are the college years the best time to ideate and plan the launch of a startup?
College provides us the best opportunities to experiment with ideas and build a business plan. We get support and guidance from experts through various college programs to execute our idea and launch our startups. Colleges also provide various corporate connections that take our idea to the next level.
Q. How do you balance your college coursework with your entrepreneurial pursuits?
I enjoy multitasking in a challenging environment–that’s what college is about! I devote equal time to my studies and entrepreneurship to ensure balance between the two.
Likhita Reddy Kasa
College: VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology (VNRVJIET)
Degree enrolled in: B.Tech. in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering
Year of graduation: 2021
Q. What got you interested in entrepreneurship?
Starting a company of my own has always been a part of my career plan. During my first year of engineering, I connected with the startup ecosystem by participating in programs/hackathons organised by different incubators and companies across India. I realised that the idea of entrepreneurship is beyond just “starting up.” Developing an entrepreneurial mindset, shaping random thoughts into viable products/services and taking these ideas from the drawing board to the market— while addressing the customers’ pain points— sounded fascinating!
Q. Who are your entrepreneurial role models?
I have many entrepreneurial role models because each of their journeys has a lot to offer. I seek inspiration from Jeff Bezos, partly because of my recent experience of working at Amazon. I admire his leadership to build a company where every single team works as a startup— even to date. And every employee makes difficult decisions by displaying ownership and customer obsession on a day-to-day basis.
Q. Why did you apply for T-Tribe’s LaunchPad program? What do you hope to accomplish through this program?
I applied for the T-Tribe LaunchPad program to learn more about entrepreneurship. I hope to use these learnings at my startup.
Q. How has LaunchPad proved beneficial to further your entrepreneurial aspirations? Please share the key learnings and benefits from the program to date.
Through LaunchPad, I had more than one team to discuss my ideas with. These open discussions provided me with the necessary perspective to identify the root cause of the problem and to think of possible solutions for the same. Peer/mentor discussions and reviews served as an open forum to learn from case studies and understand different concepts associated with the end-to-end functions of a startup. Meetings with startup founders from different domains and the faculty from institutions that have partnered with LaunchPad were thought-provoking and insightful.
Q. The government has launched several initiatives to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and skill development among India’s youth. Are you satisfied with the strides we’ve made in this regard or do you think more should be done for young entrepreneurs?
I appreciate the efforts of the government to promote and support entrepreneurship. However, I believe we have so much more to do to empower and enable school and college-going students to pursue entrepreneurship. For starters, we can offer entrepreneurship as a mandatory and experiential course in schools and colleges across the country.
Q. Who do you count as mentors in the early stages of building your business plan?
I’ve always reached out to the faculty at my institution (VNRVJIET) who are knowledgeable in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation and design thinking. I consider them my mentors.
Q. Why are one’s college years the best time to ideate and plan the launch of a startup?
Yes. Students have ample time to research, understand and ideate on the solutions to their problem statements. Resources are readily available to us as we have a large student community equipped with different skills and additional funding support from colleges and incubators. With proper planning and implementation, college years are the best time to launch new products. Finally, as a student, failing despite numerous iterations/prototyping is not as disastrous as it is for a person with full-time professional commitments. . Given the fact that startups usually take time to reach a stable point and the majority of startups fail during the initial years, being a student gives both the flexibility and freedom to explore various opportunities.
Q. How do you balance your college coursework with your entrepreneurial pursuits?
I am often told, “As an aspiring entrepreneur, you’ve got to manage everything.” As a student, I understand the challenges of balancing academics and entrepreneurship. It can be overwhelming but I try to manage both. My approach is to plan the academics in advance without dropping the ball on the entrepreneurial milestones I wish to achieve.
Roshini Soanpet
College: MVSR Engineering College
Degree enrolled in: B.E. Mechanical
Year: Third year
Q. What got you interested in entrepreneurship?
My interest in entrepreneurship started from the age of 14. It was my way of exploring life and solving the problems that I would encounter. In my view, the concept of entrepreneurship is akin to giving life a second chance, seeing yourself in a position of responsibility. Also, reading about various entrepreneurs made me realise my keen interest in the field. I wanted to be my own boss and responsible for my successes and failures—that’s the best part of being an entrepreneur.
Q. Who are your entrepreneurial role models?
Ratan Tata (Chairman Emeritus Tata Sons; Chairman, Tata Trusts), Deep Kalra (Founder, MakeMyTrip) and Shradha Sharma (Founder & CEO, YourStory).
Q. Why did you apply for T-Tribe’s LaunchPad program? What do you hope to accomplish through this program?
This program is an ideal platform that offers youngsters exposure to entrepreneurship. The reason I applied for this program was to experience the startup environment, understand the common mistakes entrepreneurs commit and build the relevant skills to help me resolve issues I may face as a startup founder. Learning what I love with the best available resources, is what I have accomplished through this program.
Q. How has LaunchPad proved beneficial to further your entrepreneurial aspirations? Please share the key learnings and benefits from the program to date.
The LaunchPad program has proved to be quite beneficial as it equips budding entrepreneurs like me with the tools they need to launch a business.
Through the initiative called T-Tribe Talks, we had interactions with several entrepreneurs where we got to know their journeys. This gave us the zeal and confidence to plan our own career as entrepreneurs. The R&D managers of some renowned companies introduced us to cutting-edge technologies, offering us insights on how to leverage them for our ventures. We were also taught how to analyse markets and build domain strategies for startups. The LaunchPad program is quite beneficial, equipping students with the basics that will make them successful entrepreneurs.
Q. The government has launched several initiatives to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and skill development among India’s youth. Are you satisfied with the strides we’ve made in this regard or do you think more should be done for young entrepreneurs?
In my view, T-Tribe has done everything and more to mould us into budding entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship has been growing significantly in India and the government has launched many programs like Startup India to create opportunities for student entrepreneurs. I believe entrepreneurship should be introduced even in rural areas. Underprivileged children should be taught the importance of financial independence from an early age.
Q. Who do you count as mentors in the early stages of building your business plan?
I count my teachers; experienced CEOs and founders; professional groups, incubators and accelerators that support students’ ideas and keep them motivated as my mentors. Online tools can also be extremely useful in gaining insights and domain knowledge. I realised that the world is in my hands due to the easy access to online resources.
Q. Why are the college years the best time to ideate and plan the launch of a startup?
Being in a college environment, we are able to identify sector-specific problems, analyse them and find solutions. Young minds can change the future of the country, create job opportunities and provide a wide variety of services. According to researchers, youngsters are more attracted to entrepreneurship and make efficient startup founders. They have a higher tendency to take risks which is an important factor in entrepreneurship. Failure doesn’t affect many youngsters as they have the resilience to pick up after a fall.
Q. How do you balance your college coursework with your entrepreneurial pursuits?
Passion, teamwork, consistency and the correct guidance are key to balancing both aspects. Build your business idea post college hours. Working overtime may not be an issue if you are passionate enough about your idea. Make a flexible timetable that allows you to focus on your studies and entrepreneurial activities to the optimum level possible.
Thota Sharath Kumar
College: MLR Institute of Technology
Degree enrolled in: B.Tech in Computer science
Year of graduation: 2021
Q. What got you interested in entrepreneurship?
I wasn’t certain about entrepreneurship even until my freshman year. However, I always had this desire to undertake a project that would contribute to the greater good of society. Instead of blaming the world for what it has to do, I wanted to make a difference as much as I can. Over time, my interest in entrepreneurship increased and I went down this path with the motto “Being successful doesn’t mean living for yourself. Rather, you should live for others”. Since then, I have been working hard to make my dream a reality.
Q. Who are your entrepreneurial role models?
My greatest role model is Mr. Sri Charan Lakkaraju, founder of stuMagz- a student discovery platform. He began his entrepreneurial journey as a freelancer at the Startup Leadership Program- Global Accelerator & Lifelong Network for Entrepreneurs & Innovators. He’s a great inspiration and has taught me to be proactive in my business.
Q. Why did you apply for T-Tribe’s LaunchPad program? What do you hope to accomplish through this program?
I applied for T-Tribe’s LaunchPad program since I’m passionate about entrepreneurship and wanted to learn basic entrepreneurial skills. Also, it has a solid structure that is spread over multiple phases to develop one’s entrepreneurial skills.
Q. How has LaunchPad proved beneficial to further your entrepreneurial aspirations? Please share the key learnings and benefits from the program to date.
The LaunchPad program gave me insights into areas such as identifying the multiple stages of business, identifying and developing an idea, what it takes to launch a startup, how to build business and revenue models, and how to manage teams and be adaptable in various situations.
Q. The government has launched several initiatives to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and skill development among India’s youth. Are you satisfied with the strides we’ve made in this regard or do you think more should be done for young entrepreneurs?
Yes, the government has launched various initiatives like TASK, Startup India and others to promote entrepreneurship among students. I’m satisfied with these initiatives as they educate young people on the basics of entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, in my opinion, most of the initiatives are more theoretical and less hands-on in their methodology. Therefore, it’s important for the government to conduct various workshops that focus on topics such as ideation, evaluation and execution, among others. This will enable students to develop a basic prototype that will help them to launch their own successful startup.
Q. Who do you count as mentors in the early stages of building your business plan?
In the early stages of my startup, I would count family members and friends as my mentors because they are the early customers who will use our application or services. Thus, we can easily get feedback about our product’s performance and the uniqueness of our startup from them. We can also understand the market and reach better, based on early feedback from near and dear ones. This will help us determine whether our application/service is beneficial or not. I would also consider the next 100 early users from different sectors like education and IT as our mentors as they would help us understand if our application or service is performing well in their sector or not. Besides, the college years will give us an opportunity to fulfill customer expectations.
Q. Why are the college years the best time to ideate and plan the launch of a startup?
College years are the best time for such pursuits as we get to explore various fields and technologies to obtain multiple perspectives for our business plan. The Indian market is huge with various cultures and people, who could be potential customers. This is a good time to work on a startup idea as we are able to improve our business plan based on valuable feedback received. We also get opportunities to meet successful entrepreneurs and get insights from them.
Q. How do you balance your college coursework with your entrepreneurial pursuits?
Time management is crucial to balancing both classwork and pursuing other activities. I usually take care of all my classwork in college and when I reach home, I work on my startup. I plan my schedule in advance so that I don’t miss attending entrepreneurial workshops or my college assignments.
Torsha Nandy
College: Malla Reddy College of Engineering and Technology
Degree: B.Tech
Year: Fourth year
Q. What got you interested in entrepreneurship?
I believe entrepreneurship is a way of life and is more than just a career option. I had never planned to pursue entrepreneurship. Rather, it became an inspired career choice triggered by various life situations. The idea of solving problems with a unique solution is itself a motivating and challenging thought and it was this thought that propelled me on the path to becoming an entrepreneur.
Q. Who are your entrepreneurial role models?
My entrepreneurial role model is my mother. In my view, entrepreneurship is the ideal way to solve problems in the best possible manner. My mom, Turna, is the most diligent woman whom I have seen throughout my life, who constantly solves others problems and those of our family’s too, in the most effortless way. Thus, she inspires me to become a better person and entrepreneur every day.
Q. Why did you apply for T-Tribe’s LaunchPad program? What do you hope to accomplish through this program?
My institution offered me the opportunity to choose the LaunchPad program. At the beginning, it was just an attempt to know my skills better. Gradually, I believe I have brushed up on my basic entrepreneurial skills.
Q. How has LaunchPad proved beneficial to further your entrepreneurial aspirations? Please share the key learnings and benefits from the program to date.
The skillset gap was bridged very well in the entire program. I was encouraged to cultivate a multi-dimensional approach to my thinking process to foresee the impact of disruptive technology on the market. The program also facilitated the utilization of the right set of tools to enhance the cognitive thought process. Most of the skills were taught using various cognitive activities that made learning fun and interactive.
Q. The government has launched several initiatives to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and skill development among India’s youth. Are you satisfied with the strides we’ve made in this regard or do you think more should be done for young entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurship is a tool which should be imparted to students from an early age. School and college students should be encouraged develop innovative ideas to solve societal problems. Though much has been done to promote youth entrepreneurship in India, there is a gap that needs to be addressed.
In many places, the fund allocated to the entrepreneur doesn’t reach him or her. There is also investor distrust to contend with for new startups. Further, the traditional Indian milieu doesn’t encourage entrepreneurship. Budding entrepreneurs are either discouraged or not taken seriously enough by family and friends. For all these reasons, it is necessary for policy makers to create more awareness about the benefits of entrepreneurship and help young people chase their startup dreams.
Q. Who do you count as mentors in the early stages of building your business plan?
I consider my professor Dr. Dheeraj Gara as one of the early mentors for my startup idea. He was one the first individuals to encourage me to pursue my entrepreneurial vision. He helped me, right from the pitching process to designing suitable business models.
Crucially, he has been a constant critic throughout the ideation phase of building my startup.
Q. Why are the college years the best time to ideate and plan the launch of a startup?
College is the best place to ideate and choose the entrepreneurial way of life as this is the time when we are at our full power and creative peak. We have the time and ability to walk the extra mile and follow our intuition. Now is when we also have easy access to resources that allows us to explore a variety of entrepreneurial pursuits.
Q. How do you balance your college coursework with your entrepreneurial pursuits?
Balancing the coursework and the startup plan becomes difficult and hectic at times. It’s really hard to focus on both aspects simultaneously. But this can be overcome by drawing up a timetable and working towards your goals. That is how I strike a balance between my coursework and my entrepreneurial pursuits.
