Had a great time with fellow panel members and addressing the MBA students at S.P. Jain School of Global Management, Mumbai Campus recently. The panel members along with me included Sachin Parekh – Founder & CEO Easyroads, Animesh Lodha – CEO Cheelizza, Rajesh Sehgal – Managing Partner Equanimity Ventures, Abhishek Barari – CEO My Cute Office and Dinesh Tiwari – MD Broad peak Capital Advisors.
The landscape of the Indian startup ecosystem has been on a constant path of evolution with the advent of various accelerators and early-stage funds coming into existence. A key factor adding value to this maturing ecosystem, over and above the capital available in the market, has been the emergence of new-age entrepreneurs. Back in 2008-09, it was unconventional for students passing out of MBA institutes to venture into the world of starting up or joining startups.
Today, we are seeing a lot more students letting go of their campus placement offers and kickstarting their own companies. Speaking with the students at the SP Jain School of Global Management clearly showed this vigor – aspiring to venture out on their own, ideating on disrupting existing conventional models and creating a growth path on their own terms.
It was an insightful session where we talked about starting an entrepreneurial journey, the importance of structured course correction aka pivot and startup funding. The session saw the participation of 50+ students coming from various backgrounds, some of them already having worked as mid and senior-level professionals.
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