Entrepreneur & Family Business

At the Indian School of Business (ISB), Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED) and PGP projects offer comprehensive guidance to potential entrepreneurs among the students – from idea evaluation to enterprise creation. The WCED acts as a mentor to the students through a series of activities, that includes:

• Organising business plan / new venture competitions.
• Organising start-up and jump-start workshops.
• Mentoring students from the initial phase of evaluating ideas, developing business plans, and supporting the implementation.
• Building relationships and facilitating interaction with venture capitalists, technology providers, enterprise-promoting agencies, commercial banks, and other financial institutions.
• Creating an ecosystem of external mentors from different fields to provide guidance for specific project ideas.

Students are supported in their vision by the School, which is emerging as a thought leader in Entrepreneurship and Family Business. Prolific research conducted by faculty in these areas is being distilled into practical applications and students benefit from this immensely.
The following interventions are available for students planning to start their own ventures:

1. Planning an Entrepreneurial Venture (PaEV)
PaEV is a single-credit practicum course of 16 weeks duration from Term 3 to Term 5, which will be considered as a Term 7 elective. Students learn to prepare business plans in ten classroom sessions and a few guided sessions. Team size is limited to three or four members. This course provides an exciting introduction to entrepreneurship and new-venture creation. It equips students with conceptual frameworks for identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, evaluating their techno-commercial attractiveness for investment, and launching a new venture. The course modules are designed such that students understand and apply the techniques and processes that can be used to identify entrepreneurial opportunities and prepare a realistic business plan based on their own ideas. The class size for PaEV is restricted to 120 students. Selection is based on presentation of entrepreneurial ideas by students.

2. Make as Much as You Can
Each team gets start-up money, which needs to be returned by all teams at the end of the programme. Students are given the mandate to create wealth innovatively in one week using this capital, in full or in part. They cannot put in money from any other source but are allowed to reinvest the money they earn. Students can take up any legitimate activity to create wealth.

3. Entrepreneurs Development Initiative (EDI)
This is an incubation programme to help ISB graduates create and sustain their own ventures. The programme facilitates the following:

• Helps in development and review of the business plan.
• Provides initial financial support to set up and operate the business.
• Provides mentoring and business resources from WCED, ISB and industry experts
• Provides access to networking opportunities with other new business owners

4. ELP-Student Entrepreneurship Project (ELP-STEP)
STEP is an Experiential Learning Programme (ELP) project that has been created for the benefit of entrepreneurs in the batch who can gain value for their enterprise. Student teams of 4-5 members address specific business issues similar to other ELP projects. This two-credit course follows all the guidelines of ELP. Student entrepreneurs are the ‘Clients’ and therefore, cannot be part of the team. They can, however, be part of another ELP student team for a different client. The ELP fee is waived for these projects. For eligibility, enterprises have to be operational and the student entrepreneur should be actively involved in the functioning of the business in the capacity of proprietor / partner. Student entrepreneurs are required to send in their project briefs as per timelines shared by PGP Projects. Final selection of projects is at the discretion of the PGP Projects department. Family businesses will not be considered for STEP.

Read more about our successful EDI ventures at http://blogs.isb.edu/wced/initiatives/incubatee-portfolio/.