The technical institutes take great pride in flaunting the number of startups they have every year vis-à-vis the jobs undertaken by passing graduates. The professors promote startups, the peers support startups. The ideas are discussed with great gusto and broom…..the start-up is standing on its own legs.
Then, the hell breaks loose. The innovators, who felt an idea is good for starting a business realize that starting a business and running a business are two things. They lack almost every experience that counts in a business – System, processes, man management, logistics, pricing, overheads, and so on. Mere technical capability does not guarantee business success.
They only realize it late and either get exploited by the financers or wind up feeling demotivated. They may make it up in their second attempt at business after a couple of years, but meanwhile, they have lost money, efforts, and whatnot.
A simple way for the institutes to promote the start-up culture in the students is not to push them into fire directly. There is a simpler way, which makes them ready for their start-up and at the same time, helps in learning the tricks of the trade. During placement, these students can be asked to join MSMEs, which are working in similar fields for a couple of years.
This time in MSMEs should be taken as a time to learn every possible thing about running a business and honing their start-up idea to convert it into a profitable business entity. This will help them to be in the good books of the founder of the MSME and will help the enterprise also. It becomes a win-win situation for both the MSME and the startup innovator. This time also helps the youngsters in finding the areas where they are weak so that they can start looking for like-minded people to form a team.
It does not take great intelligence to learn something the hard way. Smart people learn while earning. For similar smart ideas to start and run a business profitably, get in touch with me.
Image: Tim Guow
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