IIM Amritsar conducted First Edition of Entrepreneurship Summit in VC mode

Amritsar: Indian Institute of Management, Amritsar, successfully conducted the first edition of its E-Summit in collaboration with the Centre of Entrepreneurship, IIM Amritsar on February 7, 2021, in VC mode.

E-Summit 2021 brought together innovative and creative insights from diverse backgrounds and talents across the country with the intent of creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem. It served as a platform to excite, encourage, and motivate people to venture into entrepreneurship and help the participants realize their hidden potential. Many events such as Start-Up Expo, upskilling workshops, and thought-provoking panel discussions were conducted to inculcate the entrepreneurial spirit.

With workshops revolving around start-up curation, financing, valuation, and business pitching, the summit provided the budding entrepreneurs with a platform to learn the requisite skills. The event enabled the start-ups to present their business ideas in front of potential investors, industry experts, customers and helped them network with the VCs and experts for funding together with an opportunity to interact with the leading industry experts. It also hosted an insightful panel discussion throwing light on a day in an entrepreneur’s life.

The discussion was preluded with an insightful presentation by Mr. Bhavin Shah (MBA06 batch) of the Placements’ Committee highlighting the glorious journey of IIM Amritsar. Mr. Shah highlighted how with its emancipation in 2015, IIM Amritsar has reached from a batch strength of 44 students back then to 214 students now. He also elucidated the key achievements of IIM Amritsar students in various national level competitions as well as the top notch placements bagged by the students in reputed firms.

The panel discussion was ennobled with the presence of Mr. Amit Hans (Founder – Educorp Trainings), Mr. K Vaitheeswaran (Co-Founder – AGAIN Drinks), Mr. Mandeep Singh (CEO & Executive Director – JSL Lifestyle Limited), Mr. Rohit Raj (Co-Founder & Creative Chief, – The Glitch and Chtrbox.com), Mr. Sharad Vivek Sagar (Founder & CEO – The Dexterity Global Group) and, Mr. Sridhar Ranganathan (CEO – Helyxon Healthcare Solutions).

Mr. Amit Hans was the moderator for the insightful panel discussion. He highlighted how domain expertise isn’t enough in an entrepreneurial setting and that it is of utmost importance to look at the business from different aspects. Mr. Hans talked about how an entrepreneur is a salesperson right from the inception as the world of entrepreneurship demands the entrepreneur to sell his/her idea at every point of the journey. He emphasized that irrespective of whether a person starts as an entrepreneur or as a working professional, “intrapreneurship” drives success in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Concluding the insightful discussion, Mr. Hans added that intent, content, and trainability is what is sought out of candidates when it comes to hiring in a start-up environment.

Mr. K Vaitheeswaran accentuated the need for the budding entrepreneurs to be ready to face the challenges and brace themselves for failure in a start-up ecosystem. He added that being an entrepreneur can be a lonely job wherein five days of the year would be great while the rest 360 will be tough. And to cope with such a challenging environment, an entrepreneur needs to take seven things to work on every day – mind, body, heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears. Concluding his chain of thoughts, Mr. Vaitheeswaran emphasized that pioneering work cannot be done unless the budding entrepreneurs move out of their comfort zones and try out different domains beyond their areas of expertise.

Mr. Mandeep Singh started with the thought that one gets to establish a business in an entrepreneurial ecosystem wherein nobody knows what the future holds. In the face of such uncertainty, selecting a sustainable business model was deemed crucial. He added that understanding the business’s needs and molding the business model to satisfy the customers’ needs optimally is the necessity of the hour. Mr. Singh concluded that entrepreneurs create something out of nothing, and hence it is one of the most challenging jobs.

Mr. Rohit Raj started with the idea that domain expertise is over-rated in a start-up world. The joy of working with start-ups and the journey from nothing to something is what makes the entrepreneurial journey the most exciting one. Mr. Raj added that to get into the entrepreneurial journey, one must be comfortable with the state of being uncomfortable. An uncomfortable space where success and failures both are very likely is what creates an entrepreneur. Mr. Raj ended with a thought-provoking statement that one could fall and fly when it comes to being an entrepreneur, so it is worth taking the plunge.

Mr. Sharad Vivek Sagar emphasized that entrepreneurship is all about problem-solving. And that it should aim towards solving the grass-root level problems. Transformative stories have been the product of young people translating their education into leadership and solving the issues. Mr. Sagar emphasized that one of the essential things a young entrepreneur should aim towards is delivering value. Value, once created, can never be destroyed, and that is what drives the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Mr. Sridhar Ranganathan started with the idea of the analogy that while it is lonely at the top, the view is breath-taking when you reach there – Such is the life of an entrepreneur. Mr. Ranganathan added that the prosperity of the nation depends on educationists and entrepreneurs. If 100 entities are being created, 5% would be in the exit category, 90% in the existing category, and only 5% would succeed and make an impact. Mr. Ranganathan concluded with valuable insight that there are three things an entrepreneur should always have in mind – An entrepreneur is still smaller when compared to the organization, is always an extra who with an ordinary team can produce extra-ordinary results) and is nothing without the customers.

The students of IIM Amritsar showed great enthusiasm during the panel discussion. The discussions were made highly interactive through a healthy Q&A session between the panelists and students. The summit concluded with a stand-up comedy session by the well-renowned comedian Mr. Rahul Dua. The participants thoroughly enjoyed the outstanding performance of Mr. Dua, and the summit ended on a positive note.