Aseem Chauhan launched the Amity Innovation Incubator, that helps entrepreneurs through a range of infrastructure, business advisory, mentoring and financial services. Chauhan has extensive experience in venture capital and leveraged buyouts and has made investments of over $500 million globally. Chauhan holds degrees in Engineering, Finance and Strategic Management from The Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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How is entrepreneurship education shaping the students of today?
The entrepreneurial gene may not be enough to make you a successful entrepreneur. There are other skills required to become successful, and that is what can be taught. If there is an entrepreneur who just has a gut instinct, which is very much required, but does not know how to do financial planning of the company or does not know how to make a business plan to raise venture capital, he may not do well. So I think by combining that innate sense of entrepreneurship with the skill-set required to be successful, we can increase the probability of successful enterprises.
Is there enough stress given to teach students about approaching an investor?
It is one of our strengths. This is why our incubator is a different type of a setup than a normal incubator. I know what VCs look for. Many in the team that is guiding the entrepreneurs have that experience as well. We also work very closely with many VC firms and keep getting their guidance. So we give the kind of exposure to our entrepreneurs in which they can meet a VC in a low-pressure situation so they feel comfortable. Many entrepreneurs can get nervous when they meet VCs for the first time. But if you meet them in a cordial setting like an incubator, they feel more comfortable.
We also help them. We do a lot of mock sessions with them. We grill them intensely on their business plans. We ask them all the questions a VC could possibly ask. We take the position of an outsider and we point out the flaws in their business plans. So, when we send them to a VC, they are well prepared. That increases the chances of something clicking.
Do you warn your students about the possibilities that they could face in a volatile market; telling them that things are not always hunky-dory?
I think students know. Entrepreneurs know that there is a downside too. It is not that we paint a very gloomy picture, but yes we do warn them of the possibilities of failure, of market turmoil. But at the same time, we tell them that when the rest of the world is seeing a gloomy picture, an entrepreneur can see opportunity. As it has been famously said, there are more opportunities when there is turmoil in the market. So even if the market is falling dramatically, I personally start looking for opportunities. When the markets are high, I sit back and let people invest.
India is a very entrepreneurial community. We have gone all over the world and made huge amounts of fortunes because there is a certain amount of risk-taking and entrepreneurship, which is at the foundation of our Indianness. We want to take this sense of Indian entrepreneurship and give them the best technical support that any university can give.
Entrepreneurship is not just about making money or becoming big yourself. It is also about giving back to the society. How do you think today’s entrepreneurs are placed to meet this requirement?
Naturally, entrepreneurship is about making money. But I strongly believe that the best entrepreneurs are those who are not chasing money but passion. These are people who say that the money will follow, but this is an idea I must chase. Those are the people who will create truly great businesses, and in the process also make money. Due to the recent development of our economy, people are looking at quickly starting a business and getting private equity or releasing an IPO. Many of those businesses may not work out in the long term. One has to have a long-term vision. In terms of national development as well, there are many social benefits that entrepreneurship brings. One is that it drives employment. There is also the concept of social entrepreneurship in which people have now found that they can do something for the society while creating a very viable business.
How is Amity’s incubation center helping budding entrepreneurs?
Amity is an education brand. People know Amity mainly for education. We feel that the future of India will be built by the youth of today. Many students who pass out of Amity go for corporate jobs in various industries. We feel that to fulfill the vision of India, that is, to meet the GDP growth target set by the leadership of the country, it will not be enough just to work in corporate jobs and to build it at the pace of today’s corporate world. We need to create companies. We need to have a thriving sense of entrepreneurship. We feel that academia and entrepreneurship can together transform the way our society and India will be, both in terms of economic as well as social development.
So the incubator is the nucleus of the various initiatives we have in entrepreneurship development. We were one of the first institutions in India to develop specialized MBAs. Apart from general MBAs, we had MBA in biotech, telecom, etc, and also an MBA in entrepreneurship. In this program, from day one, students are tuned to think like entrepreneurs, given hands-on and practical applications. Just to teach them is not enough, we also had to show them.
Young entrepreneurs today have ideas. Many people think of being the next Narayana Murthy or Mukesh Ambani. But if you ask them, how they will do it, they are stuck. There are family commitments, expectations from parents and lack of resources. The question is: how do you take the first step? That is where the incubator comes. The Amity Incubator is there to take budding entrepreneurs and give them a support infrastructure, where they can implement their ideas. It is a hand-holding process. Someone can come here with a technology one has developed or the idea one has worked out, and we will help with all the facets of developing it. It could be with market analysis, feasibility analysis, technology vetting, or even getting VC financing. After the company has reached a certain stage, we let them go from the incubator into the real world, where they fend for themselves.
How have entrepreneurs responded to the incubator?
There is tremendous excitement among students. We are seeing for the first time how much potential there is among the students to create new ventures. Engineers, bio-technologists, nanotechnologists, etc—they can all have an idea. This incubator is not a student incubator per se. There are some cells for students who have ideas, but largely, we take entrepreneurs from outside whose bread and butter it is to create a business. So, some of the people we’re talking to are scientists who have been in research labs for many years. They have developed something and now they want to commercialize it. We’ve got young executives who have led corporate houses very well and now they have this urge in their belly to create something. All the incubates that we currently have are actually full-time professional entrepreneurs, who are developing their businesses.
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written by Shridhar, January 15, 2010
2)Dare is playing very Good role.My request to Dare is put some light on following topics.
1)Financial planning of the company/start up
2)Preparing business plan to get Venture Capitalists.
3)List of VC's in India and there contacts.
Thanks & Regards,
Shridhar Kapse
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Can i get contact details, for further discussions.