Of Youngsters and Entrepreneurship

Yesterday I was part of a seminar, where young start up companies and their executives were given a brief about Business planning and strategy for their newly formed or forming company. I was really amazed by the participation. The otherwise gloomy Sunday turned vibrant with that enthusiastic bunch.

At the same time it made me wonder how long will they be in this field pursuing their passion. They are already in some handsome job which pays them to hearts content and steals their time and energy. This kind of outbursts of entrepreneurship is something I find very common with people I work and I see each day. But something dies in them slowly.

The main reason I find is they want to do something and they are never clear about that something. Even if they know the something, they are not very clear about where they have to go from where. This to me is something very important if they want to make it a success. We can partly blame the educational system and partly blame their negligence to learn new things. I know such people and they worship Steve Jobs. Because he did what they wanted to do but they cannot do or to put it straight they dont know to do.

There are very few companies and consultancies that can help these guys. Truth is we need more people who can help such guys and keep their fire alive. The ideas are there, people can even pool enough money to bring their dreams true. But a good mentor is what it is needed. Consultancies are so busy running behind corporates where they can give a two hour session and send invoice for rest of the month with some infrequent visits. Such ideas will never work out for the start ups. These start ups need people who can sit with them, make them think and push them to implement it.

The company which took the seminar yesterday was one such company. From the basic ideas of business plan and strategy to developing processes and modules they had a very good insights of how they are going to help small business and start ups. They didnt bore with the examples of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They didnt go over the board talking all management jargons.  It was smooth and it was understandable.

I was forced to write this post for them because, I believe that these guys needs encouragement. You can see it yourself (if you can go through some intense reading, Malcolm Gladwell stuff) in their blog here. You can also follow up with them on their Facebook Page.

Last but not least, Alexander at the age of 12 knew what he was going to do and was strong on his purpose, Aristotle was mere motivator. Same goes with Chanakya and Chandragupta. If the people doesnt have purpose and passion the how much ever seminars and sessions they attend they wont be able to move forward.

Dont get me wrong. I am not saying if they dont have such consultancies they cant become a big company. Thats not the point. I am not talking about exceptions here. I just wanted to make a point that, if we nurture such ideas with help of such consultancies, we can save so much of youngsters from rat race.

In my humble opinion Universities and Colleges should have such kind of presentations or training session for final year students to let them know what actually is entrepreneurship and if they are interested in it how to achieve it. Our IIT students were brilliant enough to create a 50$ tablet but we still needed an UK company to market it. I wonder why no IIMs took that onus.

I think its time to think beyond managerial  duties.