Mentoring the Guru Shishya way...

I have had the privilege of mentoring 2 start ups in Prarambh 2020 and an entrepreneur summit organised by Saksham- The Entrepreneurship cell of IIM Udaipur. The theme of the summit was “The Last 67 Strides”. Even as India is rapidly enhancing its startup ecosystem, it still needs to climb 67 positions to top the Global Entrepreneurship Index, an indicator of the overall entrepreneurial potential of a nation. The keynote speakers of the summit put together the different perspectives on India’s startup ecosystem.

Prarambh was a dual-track incubation-cum-competition involving -

Track 1: For existing start-ups with Minimum Viable Products

Track 2. New ideas which have the potential to disrupt the market

The mentorship assignment was a six weeks tenure which started on 15th December 2019 and culminated to the final pitches at IIM Udaipur on 9th February 2020 with weekly calls every week on Mondays for an hour. There was a format for mentoring on key topics shared by IIM Udaipur team for both New Ideas and MVP categories.

The two teams mentored by me were:

1, MVP category : Nuimance Photovigyan Private Limited - A biotechnology based cancer medicine startup, one stop nano-anticancer solution to reduce cancer treatment side effects

2. New Ideas category : Extra Watts - A renewable energy based innovative startup creating energy as a new tradable currency by enabling current energy consumers to become prosumers.

The journey started with a ice breaker session introducing the teams and the mentor. The real fun started from week 2 when startups founders share their real pain areas and we started working collectively on the same. One thing which came out very clearly was that it was difficult for the New Idea team to follow the format which was mostly meant for MVP team. and this led to exploring new ways of mentoring New Ideas team:

1. A book review session on Zero to One by Peter Thiel to understand how ground level innovation happens.
2. A session on Effectuation Theory (Dr Saraswati Saras) to get understanding of how startup should work

The other team under MVP category had a very structured mentoring sessions with each session there were specific topics of discussion and the team founder was very particular about setting the agenda in advance. Few great learning were:

1. How to use business canvas model to explain the startup in a nutshell
2. How to present the startup pitch with two speakers/ co-founders and bring emotions

The icing in the cake was the webinar organised by IIM-U towards the end on 2nd February when Professor Rajesh Pandit took a session on storytelling which dramatically changed the format of the two startup pitches leading to last minute preparations on 8th February. I got the chance to personally meet the teams and briefed them how to prepare for final session.

The presentations went very well on the D-Day with both team getting lot of appreciations though not winning the contest. I was fortunate to be ranked the best mentor among the 11 mentors which mentored around 17 teams which finally participated in the event on 9th February.

It was a great learning experience for me and carved out a new niche for my career - "Startup mentoring". Having spent reasonable time with school children in Tinkering labs as a Mentor of Change in Atal Innovation Mission from where my mentoring journey began, I have come a long way mentoring PG students in B schools by enhancing employ-ability and delivering guest lectures. Look forward to many more such opportunities in future. Here is a glimpse of the event Prarambh 2020 through media coverage:

https://www.indiatoday.in/pr-newswire?rkey=20200210EN14468&filter=4315&fbclid=IwAR1LenRt83fYEq7LToQchlzf4BgHI_Dy6Q3dOB-_MTzkJKVEUWL8LeDv68M#.XlNZ1kTnJgw.facebook

https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/iim-udaipur-s-start-up-fest-prarambh-20-ends-on-a-high-note-120021001280_1.html?fbclid=IwAR2UrRgt6-8GHAttFn3SOHRWkcw5Uk-oEqQLIXK5sUCb1uSsyb5PNDGjcPw#.XlNaMqYtweA.facebook

https://www.bhaskar.com/rajasthan/udaipur/news/rajasthan-news-iim-students-showed-innovative-ideas-at-startup-festival-105632-6587098.html?utm_campaign=social_share&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=browser&fbclid=IwAR37Njc1oqhmyr_Hf1Eg6URzriK0z_I1ncqFcZnPn54xjFieQ1Qfepli3M0

Thank you for your patient reading. Have a great day and happy to receive your comments - Deepesh Goel