Another young entrepreneur, Ranjith P Ajaykumar, is planning on launching a series of consumer based websites. Nageshwar V G Neela is planning on entering the agro processing industry. According to Neela, his motivation for starting his own venture is the state of the Indian economy. In the finance domain, Satvik Upadhyay and Ankit Mathur have spotted an opportunity in the Indian market. Their website Aisapaisa.com is an independent platform for Indian retail investors to come together. The website, which will go live within a month aims to provide simple access to credible and relevant information for its users.
Nirmal Kumar has started his venture in the out of home advertising business by the name of NPPL (Nirmal Prachaar Pvt Ltd). His idea is to come up with different concepts providing maximum visibility to he brands shown at his display. “We also add value to viewers in terms of providing information like live news and railway information on the station. We have taken up our pilot project from Ahmedabad station and are now expanding it to other places. We are getting good response from the corporate houses,” says Nirmal.
The Institute is also playing a part in promoting this trend; the institute recently came up with the policy of a ‘placement holiday‘, which allows graduating students who choose entrepreneurship as a career option to sit for the institutes’ placement process for two years after passing out from the institute. Interestingly, Quetzal Group, a venture started by the four students from the Class of 2007 at IIMA, came back to the institute to offer post-graduate internships to students passing out this March. The course structure at the institute is geared towards practical learning. The institute runs an elective course in the second year titled ‘Laboratory in Entrepreneurial Motivation‘ or LEM – which has acted as a breeding ground for some of these young entrepreneurs.
Prof Vasant Gandhi observes, “This shows a new spirit of independence, risk-taking, innovation and confidence seen in top management schools abroad such as in the US. What is striking is the diversity of ideas pursued from fruit-vegetable supply-chain from Bihar to Delhi, to portal for retail investors, to agro-processing and railway-station advertising. This gives confidence that India is clearly on the rise!”