Student to entrepreneur: Growing trend among B-school grads

Following a growing trend over the past few years, the IIMs have been seeing a few graduates opt out of the placement rat race. They chose, instead, to set out on their own, diving into the sea of destiny with their own start-ups and innovative business ideas.

From the IIM-Indore graduate who is setting up a manufacturing unit to make and sell sanitary napkins made specifically for the rural population to the IIM-Bangalore graduates who started a trading and investment strategies firm, they are blazing new trails, and are among a growing population of students who are taking the entrepreneurship route straight out of their management courses. With 53.7 per cent of the population aged under 25 (according to the latest Government census), the stage is set for a boom in young entrepreneurs.

Just IIM-Ahmedabad in the last 50 years has churned out about 1.000 entrepreneurs. Snapdeal, Zipdial, Krossover Intelligence, Vellvette.com , Couch Gaming, all these start-ups are by student entrepreneurs. IT, media, education, retail, consulting, clean technology and development sector are some of the sectors these young guns have ventured into.

This trend is not limited to the IIMs. There is a new crop of entrepreneurs striking out on their own with just one or two years of work experience after having passed out from non-IIMs, including smaller business colleges in Tier II and III cities.

Most of these institutes have entrepreneurship cells which mentor and guide the students in starting their own business, generate a network and assist them in finding adequate funding. K. J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research Studies students recently took up the initiative of setting up businesses inside the campus.

With a premier B-school degree behind them and usually a plum job in hand, these youngsters are carefully planning to do something different. The reasons could be that they no longer want to be a small part of a large MNC company with the fear of downsizing always looming large. And they very often do. Like the case of Kaushik Mukherjee, from IIM-A (2008), whose first venture failed to scale up by 2010 and he took up a job with McKinsey, leaving it later to start Vellvette.com . Vellvette, a lifestyle e-commerce start-up, now has 12,000-plus members.

Innovation Some even have out-of-the-box ideas which they dream of bringing to fruition. Take the case of Narayanan Palani of K. J. Somaiya who started the in-campus ‘Gandhigiri shop’, a stationery shop with no one manning the counter. One can pick up an item and put the payment in a box provided for the purpose. The success of this venture in campus is giving him the opportunity to think of scaling it up. Or the case of Niranjan K. M. from IIM-Indore who is setting up a manufacturing unit for sanitary pads for rural India, which he plans to sell at half the cost of the ones available from the large FMCG companies. Business schools are encouraging this trend. In 1999, IIT Bombay set up entrepreneurship cells or e-cells on campus. In 2003, IIM Ahmedabad, BITS Pilani, SP Jain and Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, set up the NEN (National Entrepreneurship Network). From 2007, more than 2,000 students from these colleges have started as entrepreneurs, either straight from college or after a few years of working.

The average age of students turning into entrepreneurs is falling. Some of India’s youngest entrepreneurs as identified by NEN are still studying and yet to graduate. As with any other venture, students-turned-entrepreneurs have problems with the funding. While there are more angel venture funds willing to take risks, the idea needs to be marketable, well-analysed and different from other market offerings.

Aspiration A recent survey by International School of Entrepreneurship Education and Development in 50 Indian cities showed that 87 per cent of students aspired to become entrepreneurs. So, what makes the young lot feel they can start a business?

To such a question from a young student this is what Subroto Bagchi, founder of Mindtree, said recently: “You will come to know. The idea will make you so restless that, one day, you will wake up and realise that you are willing to go that extra mile and do everything it takes to make it happen.”

It bodes well for the country that so many graduates are restless and are willing to go that extra mile with every passing year.

(Jyorden T Misra is Founder and Managing Director of Spearhead InterSearch - an HR consulting firm.)

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