Importance of a Teacher/Mentor in the Life of an Entrepreneur

गुरु ब्रम्हा गुरु विष्णू

गुरुः देवो महेश्वरा
गुरु शाक्षात परब्रम्हा
तस्मै श्री गुरुवे नमः

              The famous hindi guru mantra holds great importance in the Indian mythological system. A teacher is given importance equivalent to good and is always adored and praised. After our parents the one who tells us the difference between the right and the wrong and motivates us to achieve things in our life is the teacher.

A teacher is not only our guide but a person who leads us to the right part with complete determination and dedication helping us to excel in various goals of our lives. For an entrepreneur clear and straight guidance is very important which is provided by the mentor or the teacher.

               To learn from the failures and to take every failure as a new step towards success is what the teacher guides and helps its students.

So, this Teacher’s Day bring delight to your mentor and excel in your field bringing smile on the face of every guide and mentor who helped you to arrive where you are. So, celebrate the knowledge and qualities you possess with your teachers and make this day memorable in your entrepreneurial career.

E-cell wishes a very happy teachers day to all such mentors who always guided us and motivated to develop this entrepreneurial ecosystem.

(courtesy: http://www.kalmstrom.com/images/Blog/Teachers-Day-Image.jpg )

(courtesy: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/multimedia/dynamic/01494/BL22CLASS4_1494281f.jpg )

Growing the Entrepreneur in Yourself this Ganeshotsav

 Growing the Entrepreneur in Yourself this Ganeshotsav!!!

Ganapati Bappa!! The lord of the lords, always preached before a new start holds a great position in Indian mythology and beliefs. And so we celebrate the ten days festival each year with a lot of blessings and good vibes.

But it is not only about Modak, Gatherings, lights, flowers and blessings. There is a lot more in the power of Ganesha which can bring out the hidden innovation in you and will lead you to the path of a successful entrepreneur.

Let us now see how the ideal figure of lord Ganesha motivates every individual to emerge out the hidden entrepreneur and touch the glorious path of victory and excellence.

The big head of lord Ganesha has a lot of great thoughts and ideas which encourages all to think big and explore big thing. An entrepreneur should always think of something out of the box which solves the problems in the easiest and simplest manner.

Next comes, the big and keen ears which have a great listening capability of understanding others. The brightest minds in the world have said “great brains speak less and listen more”, and so do the ears to lord Ganesha motivate us to do.

Although with the big head and ears lord Ganesha has small eyes which symbolize concentration. For an entrepreneur a motive and an objective is main thing to be focused leaving behind all the unnecessary surroundings. The more concentrated and devoted you are the more closer you get towards your goal.

With axe in one hand and rope in the other, lord Ganesha asks every individual to cut off all the bonds of failure and attachment and tightly rope the heights of success to reach at the desired goals. To reach at a certain place it is important to leave a certain place, and so the axe is to cut off all the bonds and the rope will help to reach at the desired goal with ease.

As said earlier, wise minds speak less and so the small mouth of lord Ganesha symbolizes to do the same. To talk less and only important without wasting the words of wisdom is an important quality which every entrepreneur must possess.

With one hand open lord Ganesha showers all blessings on us, motivating to share and work for the welfare. And for all these good deeds and welfare which comes out from the innovative minds of entrepreneurs lord Ganesha give rewards in the form of modaka in his other hand, signifying that for all good an individual do, there is always something that he/she might have to pay or sacrifice but there is a lot more that he/she will get in return.

The unique and big trunk of lord Ganesha symbolizes efficiency and adaptability, to find the most efficient solutions and the one with the greatest adaptability. The more efficient and adaptable the startups are, the faster they turn into big successful enterprises setting good standards and examples for others.

To live in the world peacefully, there are a lot of things which one will have to digest so that no one is harmed. This does not mean hiding the wrong but not doing the wrong for others and peacefully digesting and handling the wrong others do to you. This is what is signified by the big stomach of lord Ganesha encouraging to peacefully digesting the good and bad in life.

The desires should be always under control so that you ride on your desires not allowing them to ride on you. In the entrepreneurial world often one will be tempted to fall for desires and earning in the bad way. But is should be under control as lord Ganesha controls his ride over the mouse.

And yes the Prasad in his feet which everyone wants to eat, depicting that with your innovations and ideas you should lead the world so that everyone might wish for you.

With all these qualities and symbols you can take your ideas and innovations to the best level and work for the betterment of your entrepreneurship career and also benefiting the society. So, this Ganesh Chaturthi not only bring lord Ganesha home but also bring out the hidden entrepreneur in yourself and keep it alive forever. Good Luck!!

Lord Ganapati and Entrepreneurship

Ganapati Karkhana

"The only thing I missed during my 3 years in Delhi was the Ganesh Festival of Mumbai. It’s magical here during Ganesh Chaturthi! I really can’t explain the vibrant and exciting atmosphere here right now. It’s brighter than Diwali , more colorful than Holi , streets don a glamorous look with decorated pandals in every neighborhood.
The Ganpati Aagman has already begun and it would continue all day long. 
I just came back from my old friend Siddharth’s eco-friendly Ganesh idol workshop after the last bappa idol found its way to a devotee’s home.

Siddharth is an incredible artist! I and Sid did schooling and junior college together. He makes various clay idols and sculptures which look so surreal as if they are filled with life. He focuses on a great amount of detail while making them. He would complete his Graduation in Sculptures this year and has a diploma in Fine Arts. 
Sid would have been an engineer today, probably writing Java/ Python codes or fixing some green chips and not making these awesome sculptures , paintings, and designs if he didn’t had followed his passion.
After completing 12th, his family wanted him to pursue chemical engineering and made him appear JEE , AIEEE and what not, even he gave up at a certain point and believed his parents that engineering was a more “respectful” job than being an artist was. We use to meet after 12th boards and discussed what would be the ideal career path, I always told him, “leave what everyone else says, dude, it’s your life! Just believe in yourself and listen to your instinct.”

Courtesy: Lord Ganesh Idol Making

I always encouraged him to follow his passion and gave fuel to his inner voice amidst an ocean of people around him from family , relatives, friends of family , neighbors , neighbors’s dog , relatives of relatives and also Sharma uncle reminding about his financial conditions at home and how engineering is the only key to success.

While I told him I can see his paintings selling in millions and him running a company and teaching kids at some university about ancient Indian art but not an engineer. ( I have always been this sleazy )

We then researched what is the scope in Fine Arts to gather some statistics to boost about during cold-debates with his family everytime i was at his place after entrance exams.

“Rahul , explain to mom what we read that day on the internet”

“yeah , yeah, aunty…fine arts has ….”

“He is doing engineering! We would select the branch once the results are declared”

:/ :/ 

And the D-Day arrived. the results were out. Well, ranks and numbers do not really matter in this case but unfortunately or I’d say rather fortunately his “caste certificate” wasn’t issued on time by the court and he couldn’t secure his admission.

But he was genuinely talented and I was genuinely a salesman. Four years ago I sold him the idea of starting up a “ganpati-karkhana” to use his talents in making eco-friendly clay idols to start earning. He too wanted to start and just needed some motivation, I was in Delhi when he called me and in an excited voice told me how he sold his first idol and started the karkhana from his house’s front yard. He said he missed my presence and that helping hand.

Cut to 2016, Siddharth is a skilled sculptor who has worked with some of the biggest sarvajanik Ganesh mandals of Mumbai. He was pre-booked for 2 whole months for his craftsmanship and has a small workshop where he sells custom made eco-friendly idols.

Today I was at his workshop where I helped him in giving final touches to some unfinished idols. There are close to 1 million household that bring Ganesh idols home in Mumbai & MMR and there is a 150% rise in demand for eco-friendly ganesh idols. We were just thinking, how about starting up an ecommerce store of eco-friendly Ganesh idols and ship globally! Who knows what Bappa wants from us as we synergize."

Ganpati Bappa Morya!!!!

Courtesy: Medium.com

Case Study on Silicon Valley and Tech Bubble

​​Silicon Valley is a leading hub and ​startup ecosystem​ for high­tech innovation and development, accounting for one­third of all of the ​venture capital​investment in the United States. It was in the Valley that the silicon­based integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and the microcomputer, among other key technologies, were developed. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of a million ​information technology​workers. This describes the case study on Silicon Valley,Significance on nowadays in world and in context to India,significance of Tech Bubble,factors for increase number of startups,Govt. policies.
This case study by Ecell ssgmce covers following points like

1​.History of Silicon Valley
2.​Significance of Tech Bubble
3.​Factors for increase in the number of startups 
4.Conclusion

Click Here for complete case study and you can watch the video here.

Internships/ Industrial Visits: A Win-Win For Employers And Students

Internship and volunteer experience can be exceptionally valuable to your career if you are lucky enough to snag those opportunities. We have compiled a list of reasons why landing an internship or volunteer opportunity can be one of the most important tasks while in search of a job.

• Potential employers see you in action. Employers love to have interns and volunteers. It allows them to “try out” a potential employee to see if they will fit into the culture of the organization and if the skills they have or can develop are what the employer is looking for. If the organization is not currently hiring, they may know someone who is. Personal references are always great ways to get a job you’re interested in.
• You develop a sense of workforce expectations. Are you new to an industry or organization, and not sure what it is all about? Use your internship or volunteer experience as a way to learn about your industry’s expectations and opportunities. Maybe you’ll love it and couldn’t see yourself working anywhere else, or maybe you will decide it’s not for you. Either way, it’s better to figure this out now then 10 years from now when you are unsatisfied with your career choice.
• Ability to network with professionals in your field. This is your time to shine. Get to know the people who are in your field; this doesn’t just include upper management. Get to know everyone and learn from them. Ask them questions and discuss opportunities. Build those relationships continuously and keep them active.    
•  Ability to apply classroom coursework to the position. As a student you might have wondered how all those theories you have been learning will relate to the workforce. An internship or  is a great way to make those connections, see people in action, as well as offer you the opportunity to job shadow someone in the position you’d like to hold one day. Hopefully, they’d be able to show you how they applied knowledge from the classroom into their everyday work, and answer questions.
•  Introduction to specific industry cultures and etiquette. Get to know the culture and etiquette of the business. Maybe you have experience in the medical field where you are very hands-on with patients, and you want to move to an administration role that is not hands-on, but more computer and files based. In making the change, you may need to change the way you work with people so you don’t offend anyone. Another example would be if you are working for an international company that does business with other countries often where U.S. etiquette is not always appropriate. It is better to learn the culture and etiquette of the business now verses later.

Industrial Visits 

• Industrial visit has its own importance in a career of a student who is pursuing a professional degree. It is considered as a part of college curriculum, mainly seen in engineering/MBA courses.
•  Objectives of industrial visit is to provide students an insight regarding internal working of companies. We know, theoretical knowledge is not enough for making a good professional career. 
• With an aim to go beyond academics, industrial visit provides student a practical perspective on the world of work. It provides students with an opportunity to learn practically through interaction, working methods and employment practices. It gives them exposure to current work practices as opposed to possibly theoretical knowledge being taught at college.
• Industrial visits provide an excellent opportunity to interact with industries and know more about industrial environment. Industrial visits are arranged by colleges to students with an objective of providing students functional opportunity in different sectors like IT, Manufacturing and services, finance and marketing.  
• Industrial visit helps to combine theoretical knowledge with industrial knowledge.Industrial realities are opened to the students through industrial visits.

Original Interview taken by Firstpostdotcom
Success Quotient is a weekly feature that appears every Friday in Firstpost, which looks at the pains and joys en route to success for a head honcho - whether a CEO, MD or an entrepreneur. The column looks at the ideas that helped launch a company, its highs and lows.

“I knew I would build a company and a product that would be useful to people and stand out in the market,” says Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, One97 Communications, that incubated Paytm – a payment gateway that has secured funding from Jack Ma of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and Ratan Tata. A topper all through school to a backbencher in his engineering college, Sharma speaks of grim times as a collegian in Delhi. His grades were disappointing – this after having to take the vice chancellor’s permission to get admission to Delhi School of Engineering as he was just 15 years of age.  In a tête-à-tête with Firstpost, the 36-year-old shares his amazing journey that he knew would see him to the top.

Excerpts from the conversation

You started engineering course early at 15 years of age. What were your goals?

I was a topper in school and finished school when I was 13 years old. I finished Class XII and got admission to engineering college when I was just 15. So I had to leave Aligarh, where I grew up, for a big city like Delhi and was alone there. I did my schooling with Hindi as the language of instruction. So, when I came to Delhi, I found it difficult to cope with English. I come from a lower middle class family – my father was a school teacher and the sole earning member. I have two elder sisters and a younger brother. Mother was a home-maker. So, for me, the goal while joining engineering college was to finish the course and take up a job that offered Rs 10,000 as salary. That was a big enough dream for a boy like me from Aligarh then.

When did that dream change?
In the initial days, when I started attending classes in engineering, I used to sit in the front bench. I had always sat in the front bench in school. That changed one day when the teacher asked me a question in English. I could not understand the question as I did not understand the language. After that day, I retreated to the back bench. I would be bullied by classmates. I was fortunate to be living in a hostel while in College. My friends there were quite protective about me. They helped me to be confident and stand up to others in class.

The 1990s were the time of the Internet. I used to read newspapers and magazines to learn English. In a magazine I read about Silicon Valley. I was intrigued. I spent time in the computer centre in college and dreamt of becoming a Sabeer Bhatia. I realised that instead of taking up a job, it would be better to create something in India.

You started a company while in college.

Yes! To hell with these classes. I can build a company with the help of the Internet, I decided. During my third year, a batch mate, Harinder Takhar and I got together and built this company called Xs! Corporation. It was a web portal that offered web-guided services, including web directories, and was also a search engine. We got seed money worth Rs 20,000 from Individual Angel Investor, a New Mexico-based venture capital fund. We roped in two more of my batch mates into the venture. I finished college in 1998. Between February-May 1999, our turnover was Rs 50 lakhs! I sold the company in 1999 to Living Media India, which is now the India Today Group for half a million dollars and split the money between the four of us.

What did you do with the money?

The first thing I did was to buy a colour TV for my family. We did not have a TV. I surprised my mother by buying her saris. Father had taken loan to marry off my sisters. I was able to repay that. Finally, we were loan-free! I saved some of the money, too. My parents did not understand the work I was doing but they were glad I was doing well.

When did you start Paytm?

After selling the firm I worked for a while but soon got bored of it. I had Rs two lakhs and along with a colleague, Rajiv Shukla, co-founded One97 Communications Ltd, a mobile value-added services company. We decided to call it One97 as that was the directory enquiry service number of BSNL. Then 9/11 happened and the business crashed. My partner left. I had no money. I started using public transport, lived on two cups of tea -- it was hard times again. My father asked me to take up a job. I was 25 years old and the family wanted me to get married. But no one was willing to marry me!

I took up a job as a consultant to sustain myself. With smartphones becoming popular, I decided to do something around it. I always wanted to impact people’s lives. So with Paytm, a mobile wallet, launched in December 2010, we have done away with plastic money. You can access Paytm through smartphones or on our website. At present, we have 50 million consumers doing 60 million transactions a month and would like to touch 100 million consumers until end-2015. We hope to touch 10 billion in 2016-17.

You have energy expending hobbies like bungee jumping, sky diving, river rafting.

Yes. I love speed. Everyone wants to do his best. However, I believe, it is the speed of execution that makes the difference. I love to live life in the fast lane. It is exhilarating to fall through the sky at 350 km per hour.  I also listen to music, be it Norah Jones or Noor Jehan, rock, New Age, Cold Play. You can’t discriminate between music.

What do you dream of now?

I believe, If you are at it, you should get it. I believe in Aham Brahmasmi -- I am the creator. I am of the opinion that life got better with mobile payments. Cash creates corruption in the economy. E-commerce can help to remove that. I dream of the day our company can help half a billion Indians.

TeeTime: In Conversation With Vijay Shekhar Sharma – Founder & CEO of Paytm 

Walk The Talk With Founders of Paytm and OYO Rooms

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/walk-the-talk/walk-the-talk-with-founders-of-paytm-and-oyo-rooms/388026

"We're augmenting the scope of Indian economy", says Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, Paytm, a start-up that owns Paytm Wallet, India's largest mobile payment service platform. Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and CEO of Oyo Rooms says, "In real terms we've democratized hotel industry across categories without even owning a single hotel". Oyo stands for "On Your Own", a start-up with an app that enables inexpensive and comfortable sojourn for travellers across 100 cities in India and its 21-year old CEO is a college dropout. While Paytm is an acronym for Pay Through Mobile which enables cashless transactions via a smartphone app. Vijay points out that when technology enters an industry it changes the fundamentals of that industry and by launching the Paytm platform he has challenged hardcore banking organizations. And Ritesh believes his venture has dissolved boundaries between the verticals of the hospitality industry. Both these young entrepreneurs feel that start-ups have a lot of scope in India and they would certainly give back to the society in terms of funding and skill development with respect to ideas for new start-ups.

Who Is An Entrepreneur?

According to our Team, we could find out the following words to describe what entrepreneurship according to us is.

Passion is the real drive

The necessary element that really dwells at the center of any entrepreneur is Passion!!! An entrepreneur possesses an interior fuel and stamina that drives his or her actions; this superior energy helps to overtake and surpass the different challenges and it injects strength to continue pursuing goals when difficulties arise. Anyone can be an entrepreneur and behave like one- regardless of whether or not they happen to be an equity holder. Ultimately, it’s all about the attitude when running the show.

• An entrepreneur is a starter. An entrepreneur is an initiator, a challenger and a driver. Someone that creates something new, either an initiative, a business or a company. He or she is the beginning (and sometimes the end) of a venture, project or activity. The entrepreneur might not be the idea-tor, but he or she is definitely the one that decides to make that idea a reality.
• An entrepreneur is the driver. The entrepreneur is the person in charge, the leader and the person to look to for leadership. He or she is the one that pushes forward and inspires a team to follow. The entrepreneur is the one that sits in the driver’s seat, and has the ability to change direction, accelerate, slow down or even stop a venture.  
• An entrepreneur is accountable and responsible. The entrepreneur is the ultimate responsible for the destiny of its venture, which can be a company, a project, or any other endeavor. The entrepreneur is the one that has the highest stakes at the venture, thus the one that needs to be empowered to fully direct the endeavor