| Entrepreneurship is not something that can be taught through chalk and talk, feels Laura Parkin. As the executive director of National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), a non-profit organisation of Wadhwani Foundation, she believes one needs to recreate real-life situations so that students get a feel of what is involved in being an entrepreneur. NEN recently tied up with Indian Angel Network (IAN) to expand its reach to promote entrepreneurship at a broader level. Parkin spoke with ET about the tie-up and the emerging entrepreneurship trends in India.
What do you expect of this tie-up?
We plan to reach out to maximum number of entrepreneurs through this. Angel investors are hard to find. Even if there is an exciting idea that has the potential to grow into a huge business, it dies out even before it meets help from investors. IAN has 60 members who will support the ideas that have the potential to mature into a full-fledged business. Tie-up will also increase interest, promote entrepreneurship, get new business plans while giving boost to dialogue and mentoring.
How would you offer young entrepreneurs the ‘first of its kind structured on-line and direct access’ to angel investors?
Aspiring entrepreneurs can now directly get in touch with investors and discuss their ideas on the National Entrepreneurship Network portal. They can get information about angel investors and clear their doubts. On-line access will be beneficial and people can reach anyone, anywhere 24/7. Aspiring entrepreneurs have already started showing interest and within a week of its launch, we have got six entries for further evaluation.
Who will be your target audience? Do you plan to reach out to tier-II and Tier-III cities?
NEN is working with more than 285 top-tier institutes reaching over 3 lakh young people across 30 cities. In the next year-and-a-half, we will be reaching out to another 10-15 cities. We are looking at tier-II, tier-III cities as well, where ever we can get good ideas. We are reaching out to graduates as well, but a major challenge would be to groom them.
How strong is your mentoring process?
Even before angel investors step in, our volunteers, close to 1,500 of them, go about discussing the concepts of entrepreneurship, real world challenges, making people aware of the bottlenecks and the opportunities. We have a faculty development programme in entrepreneurship with 260 members.Then there are workshops for leaders to educate more about this. Those in the process of becoming entrepreneurs go through a rigorous mentoring process. That’s after the plans are approved and before the business is set up.
There is a trend of freshers opting to set up businesses. Does this help?
Yes, increasingly youngsters are opting to become entrepreneurship across institutions. Be it B-schools or tech-school, it’s the same story everywhere. But to become a successful entrepreneur, it always helps to have some experience under your belt so that you understand how business works.What has been happening as a result of this is many of start-ups are closing down within a year or two of their launch. We would discourage this, and would like people to go for some experience before they start on their own.
The idea of working with a start-up has been catching on. Somehow it’s in sync with aims of aspiring businessmen?
That’s true. In fact that’s a good way to approach their goal. Unfortunately, there are few credible and high potential start-ups here. Add to that their anonymity. If students get to work in a good start-up, nothing will hone their skills better towards setting up a business.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Interview/Laura_Parkin_Executive_Director_NEN/articleshow/2681558.cms
|
