Preconference
workshop on start-ups in association with Kanara Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (KCCI) was organized on Wednesday, 19th February 2020 at Nethravathi
Auditorium.
There were
more than 300 participants in the workshop out of which 96 participants comprise
of members from corporates, faculty members and students from institutes in and
around Mangaluru
Objectives: Students should be encouraged to develop an entrepreneurial mindset
through experiential learning by exposing them to training in cognitive skills
(e.g. design thinking, critical thinking, etc.), by inviting the first generation
local entrepreneurs or experts to address young minds. Initiatives like idea
and innovation competitions, workshops, seminars, conferences, exhibitions,
mentoring by academic and industry personnel, throwing real-life challenges,
awards and recognition should be routinely organized. To prepare the students
for creating the start-up through the education, integration of education
activities with enterprise-related activities should be done. With this objective workshop
on startups was organized.
The workshop began with the prayer; Ms. Rahasya
Pai from KCCI welcomed the gathering, Mr.Isaac Vas, President of KCCI
inaugurated the workshop by lighting the lamp. Mr. Kudpi Jagadish Shenoy,
President of Womens’ National Education Society (WNES) presided over the
programme.
Addressing the
gathering, Mr. Isaac Vas said that there are three types of entrepreneurs:
Those who do business solely for profit, those who believe in giving the best
products and services to consumers and lastly those who want to bring about
change. “Ideas that seemed crazy or even imaginable just a few years ago are
commonplace today,” he said, pointing to Uber, Ola, and Airbnb as examples.
He advised the delegates
to harbor high entrepreneurial vision. “The world is changing demographically
and there is enough space for new entrants in business,”
Dr. Molly S. Chaudhuri,
Director of MSNM Institute gave a vote of thanks. Mr. Muddassir Khadar, Asst.
Professor was the programme compere.
Mr. Ajith Kamath K.,
Mr. Naveen Narayan, Mr. Santosh Prabhu, Dr. Madanmohan Rao, and Mr. Avinash
Karanth are the resource persons for the workshop. WNES Vice President Mr. Manel
Annappa Nayak and members Mr. Nagar Narayan Shenoy and Mr. Raghav Kamath were present.
Inaugural
program was followed by technical sessions.
Expert
Session 1: Business Plan
Speaker: Mr. Ajith
Kamath, Proprietor of Ajith Enterprises
Mr. Ajith
Kamath cited examples from his own journey, such as becoming eligible to bid
for contracts by first becoming a sub-contractor to gain experience. He also
called for more exposure about the business and entrepreneurship world for
engineering and IT students, and vice-versa.
Though circumstances may change the
business plan helps see broader connections, and holds the founders and
employees accountable to their commitments. The very act of writing things down
makes concepts, marketing, and financials more explicit, Ajith explained.
Expert
Session 2: How to fund your Start-up
Speaker: Mr.
Naveen Narayan, Fellow Member, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Funding needs
for entrepreneurs vary across the stages of ideation, discovery, validation,
customer creation, and company building. Funding sources for the startup
journey vary during ideation (self-financing, business plan competition prizes,
family), validation/seed (angels, crowdfunding, incubators, government grants),
early traction (Series A: early stage venture capital), and scaling (growth stage
VCs, PE). There are also grants given to new startups, but not to modified
entities formed by splitting up or the reconstruction of an already-existing
business. There are also grants given to new startups, but not to modified
entities formed by splitting up or the reconstruction of an already-existing
business. Mr. Naveen advised founders to research the implications of each type
of investment with respect to risk, repayment, involvement, duration, and
return to investors, pressure, and decision-making.
Expert
Session 3: Legal Compliance
Speaker: Mr. Sathosh
Prabhu, Co-Founder Intelex IP Solutions
Mr. Santhosh
Prabhu said, the foremost and pretty crucial thing after the incorporation of a
business entity is to follow up with its compliances. Hence, before you
register your company, you should know whether you would be able to comply with
its compliances or not. But how would
you figure out? For the same, you need to find out the compliances of the
business entity you have chosen to register with. He also gave the details
regarding the registration process and formalities.
Expert
Session 4: Business Scalability
Speaker: Dr.
Madanmohan Rao, YourStory Media TiE
Bangalore
Dr.
Madanmohan Rao insisted on the journey from ideation to scaling up business
ideas. Founders need to reflect on their journeys and aspirations and decide
whether they want to remain small enterprises or global players. He also gave examples
range from corner medical shops to large-scale chains like Radha Medicals or
CVS. Ola and Paytm are good examples of Indian startups going global.
Expert
Session 5: Native Startups
Speaker: Dr.
Lionel Aranha, Chartered Accountant & a Lawyer in consulting practice in
the Finance & Legal Area.
In his
session Dr. Lionel Aranha discussed the different ideas for entrepreneurship
while looking at innovation leading to Start-up/Incubator. He discussed the
different concepts and issues related to upcoming entrepreneurs with reference
to global examples and challenges in the world economy at large. He also
invited students to discuss any of their ideas or business in-process so as to
make it more realistic and opportunistic.
All the
sessions were followed by questions and answers session in which students got
their doubts solved. All the speakers’ encouraged and motivated participants to
think out of the box and insisted the youth to be in start-up and create the success
story of their own venture. The program was quite
informative and interesting too.
Feedbacks were
taken from all the participants. Positive response was received from major set
of participants, with most of them requesting for further such workshops.
