How To Launch A Campus Company Program

Description
This brief paper pertaining to how to launch a campus company program.

HOW TO LAUNCH A
CAMPUS
COMPANY
PROGRAM
How to Launch and Manage a
Campus Company Program
An NEN Guide
© National Entrepreneurship Network
How to Read This Book
This booklet is intended for faculty and management of educational institutes. The main purpose
is to provide a framework to initiate, encourage and manage an experiential education program for
student enterprises.
The guidance provided here is indicative rather than prescriptive. References here are typical to the
educational context and environment in India; however a parallel can be drawn to similar systems
in emerging economies.
It is rare for undergraduate or even graduate students from such educational systems to have
real life experience in venture creation and development. These systems typically do not provide
adequate space for such explorations. The guidance in this booklet caters to the needs of such
university systems.
The program outlined here is extracurricular in nature and has been formulated for launching
and enabling various student enterprises at academic institutes across India. Through stories,
examples, and caselets of real-life Campus Company Programs, this booklet describes models
from the NEN network that enable successful learning and experiences in enterprise building.
Pointers to integrate this program into the curricula are also provided, something that autonomous
institutes and deemed universities will ?nd useful and easy to implement.
1. Introduction 7
2. Getting Started 10
The context
Value proposition
Implications for the institute
3. Stakeholders 21
4. Fundamentals 25
Selecting companies for the program
Mechanics of a Campus Company
Team selection and structure
Idea selection
Raising capital
Challenges
5. Success Factors 36
What is success
Maximizing value
6. Building a Sustainable Program 44
7. The NEN Community 51
Table of Contents
6 National Entrepreneurship Network
7 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
The successful implementation of the program is based on
structured activities on campus, ideation, opportunity evaluation
and selection, and most importantly, management involvement
in the whole process.”
? Poonam Madan, Faculty Mentor, International College for Girls, Jaipur,
Campus Company - Ether Alliance
8 National Entrepreneurship Network
Introduction
What is a Campus Company?
Campus Companies are enterprises run by your students, within your academic institutions,
with the rigor and detailing of real life businesses. Students are mentored by faculty and
entrepreneurs.
The Campus Company Program, an experiential learning program, is aimed at providing your
students with knowledge of enterprise building gained from ?rst-hand experience of ideating,
planning, setting up and running a business.
Madhumita Viswanathan
and Karthik Subramanian of
SSN College of Engineering,
Chennai, with their offering,
the app 'Badge It', which
automates the process of
creating badges for events.
1
9 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Our (campus) venture has become the guiding light for all our
future endeavors. Personally, it has in?uenced me to grow and
start a couple of ventures and take them to heights.”
- Pulkit Bakshi, Student Entrepreneur, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, New
Delhi, Campus Company - Fabrica India
Why the Program?
Some of the tangible and intangible bene?ts of a Campus Company Program are:
• Students gain knowledge, skills and practical experience in starting and running an
enterprise
• Students can practice setting up a venture with limited risks in a protected en vironment
• Students’ con?dence levels increase and this often results in many of them starting
independent ventures themselves soon after graduation
• Educational institutes are able to create a highly effective and experiential pedagogy on their campuses that
supports entrepreneurship
• Faculty members keep abreast of what is happening in the world of entrepreneurship,
especially since industry interaction is integrated into classroom learning platforms
In fact, some campus companies may actually take research from college labs and turn them
into practical applications that bene?t consumers or businesses. This in turn encourages a better
research mindset and builds the con?dence of students.
How did this Start?
Way back in 1964, Romesh Wadhwani, a Forbes-listed serial entrepreneur started the ?rst of his ?ve ventures, a
dormitory canteen ‘Canteen Corp’ while still a student at IIT-Mumbai. In a young socialist India, this capitalist venture
was both an aberration and a subject of great controversy and debate. It also had paying customers asking for more.
The result – a pro?t-generating endeavour that provided quality snacks and beverages to grateful student customers
while it ran.
Running this venture gave Romesh the con?dence that he could do anything that he
wanted to. It also planted in his mind, the thought of creating more such experiences for a larger
number of students across India – a thought that took root in 2003 with the creation of the National
Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) Trust under the aegis of the Wadhwani Foundation.
Romesh had setup the Wadhwani Foundation, a philanthropic organization in 2000 with a
mission to accelerate economic development in India and emerging economies. NEN itself serves as
India’s largest entrepreneurial eco-system.
The impact of the Campus Company program has been signi?cant. Each year, 64,000
students across 400 campuses actively engage in entrepreneurship activities. In 2012-2013 alone, 492
student ventures were started!
10 National Entrepreneurship Network
Getting Started
If you are an enthusiastic faculty member raring to go, a basic but very important question could be, “How do I get
the management on board?” The best approach is to look for a match between the focus areas of the institute’s
management and the advantages of running a Campus Company Program.
The context
One has to keep in mind that the management of most institutes would typically be focused on macro issues
concerning the institution – brand, value for students, ?nances, legal implications of decisions, and allocation of
educational resources.
As David Ogilvy puts it, “If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you
should use their language.” Focus on the macro topics, and how launching the Campus Company Program could go
a long way in achieving the institution’s goals.
To help you formulate a strategic approach to your presentation to the management, here’s a look at these macro
issues.
Brand
The World Economic Forum 2009 study ‘Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs’ endorses the relationship
between entrepreneurship education and incidences of high-growth enterprises. NEN’s own decade-long experience
shows that educational institutes which offer a wide variety of entrepreneurship programs see a signi?cant upward
trend in their graduates starting and growing companies. This is made possible because of the focus and scope
of these programs - promoting awareness, engaging, educating and building skills while enabling entrepreneurial
experiences.
Enterprise development programs have a strong ability to in?uence entrepreneurial attitudes, skills and learning
of participants. Exposure to this kind of knowledge and skills arms participants with con?dence to not only start
enterprises on their own but also be entrepreneurial leaders in their workplaces.
Today, several highly-rated and progressive institutes across India support student enterprises with the intention of
giving their students an entrepreneurial edge. While numbers of enterprises created or alumni entrepreneurs who
give back to their alma mater through endowments, are not yet a measure of academia’s success in India, it is only
a matter of time before it becomes so. The question is, will your institution be one of the top brands in producing
entrepreneurial leaders?
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11 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
..six students started businesses after graduation - two
started restaurants, the others started an NGO, boutique,
training academy and play school respectively. Every year,
around 30 students opt for the Campus Company Program. We can see
it setting a trend of creating entrepreneurs on graduation.”
- Rosy Fernando, Faculty Mentor, MOP Vaishnav College for Women, Chennai
Bene?ting students
As the novelist Bram Stoker said, “we learn of great things by little experiences”.The Campus Company Program
embodies this belief and models its structure to maximize learning through entrepreneurial experiences.
Through experiential learning and by being involved in establishing and running an enterprise, students realize the
difference between theory and practice.
While it is one thing to read about sales and marketing, it is a completely different experience to try and sell the ?rst
10 cups of tea in one’s own tea shop. While it is intellectually easy to understand that customer satisfaction is key to
business, living through the nightmare of a queue of customers demanding their money back brings home the reality.
In many cases, students ?nd to their dismay that technology is merely an enabler, especially in cases where, while
they have fancy product inventions that are great in itself, the customer is really not enamored enough to spend any
money on them!
It is a fact that the Campus Company Program provides an expansive learning curve to students, right from enabling
them to identify a marketable product/service to preparing a convincing proposal, to picking out a team and managing
various operational aspects including logistics, ?nance and execution.
Some Campus Company ventures have become so successful that they have inspired other students to test their
entrepreneurial skills while still in college. According to Faculty Advisor, Dr. Suresh Kumar, PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore, Campus Company Thirst-e, “The success of the Thirst-e initiative has led other students to start new
innovative and diverse campus companies like My Campus and Tech Travels as well.”
Add to the above the need to manage time and ?nances, which are usually at a premium, and students, very early on,
develop the ability to multi-task and ?nd viable alternatives and solutions for the various problems they face while
running a Campus Company.
Hema Natarajan, Faculty Mentor, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, Campus Company - Melting Point ?rmly
12 National Entrepreneurship Network
Running a Campus Company has taught me how to cope in a high-stress
environment, deal with unexpected setbacks and ?gure out workable
solutions.”
- D Vejay, Student Entrepreneur, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore,
Campus Company Thirst-e
Implications
Finances
‘Where will the capital to invest in these companies
come from? Are you expecting the institute to pay
for it?’ could be a critical question that you may
encounter from your management. The answer to
this could be a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ depending on how you
model your program.
The ?nancing model for a Campus Company ranges
from a management initially funding the venture to
students raising money from their alumni, fellow
students or even investors. There have also been
successful cases of students issuing shares in their
company to long-term investors (for equity) and then
holding themselves accountable to their investors
through company growth and dividends.
Suf?ce to say that you will be surprised how many
different ways there are to money! The only thing you
may want to worry about is how to help guide them
towards governance models so they can do the right
thing.
Legalities
‘Are these companies legally registered independent
entities? What are the implications of that?’ These
may seem like tricky questions and ones that worry
believes that, “The program instills a holistic attitude,
ensuring personal growth and discipline in students. They
gain con?dence while learning to work around very thin
margins and keeping prices competitive.”
The program is structured in such a manner that there
are periodic interactions between the students and their
mentors, with frequent reviews of progress / challenges.
Troubleshooting and course correction are done as needed
while successes are celebrated and analyzed so that they
can be replicated in the future. The need to report progress
in a speci?ed manner ensures that students learn to be
disciplined and are constantly involved in making their
project a successful one.
Through its inherent design, the Campus Company
Program ensures that students learn to multi-task,
become more structured (by creating documents, using
checklists, maintaining necessary records, etc.), develop
communication and presentation skills, and most
importantly, step out of their comfort zones. All this helps
them grow and develop as well-rounded professionals
even as they study in college.
These and many other nuances of the real world of
business are some of the gains for the students who get
an opportunity to run Campus Companies. Not only do they
make more informed decisions about when and how they
might become entrepreneurs, but they are also usually the
ones coveted by corporate recruiters due to the experience
they have gained in running a venture.
13 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
The good news is that they
(students who started Campus
Companies) all secured good
placements from the institute.
Even better news is that two of them have
already left their jobs and are working on
another business idea in Patna.”
? Dr. Preeti Bhakshi, Faculty Mentor,
Jaipuria Institute of Management,Indore
almost every director or faculty as they start to think of an
enterprise development program.
While these questions seem to be complex, the answers
are typically simple. These are learning and experience
gaining platforms for students and hence fall within the
purview of ‘practical’ or ‘experiential’ component of any
entrepreneurship program and / or course.
A Campus Company runs as per the rules and regulations
of the college. The faculty and head, accounts department,
and NEN advisors review all transactional activities
of the Campus Companies every three months. NEN
advisors connect the student entrepreneurs to Chartered
Accountants in addition to providing on ground, centralized
support in this regard. In addition, the students regularly
send account statements to the management. The
accounts department of the college is also kept informed
on a regular basis.
The college advisory boards maintain a legal and ethical
review system in order to ensure that there is no irregularity
of any sort. Total transparency is maintained with respect
to any and all ?nancial dealings that the students may
enter into as a part of the Campus Company Program.
Allocation of resources
Any management leader would be concerned about
allocation of resources, both academic and
non-academic, when students are running their
campus companies. You, as faculty, would have to go
prepared with some solutions and suggestions during
any discussion with the Director.
These solutions would of course take into
consideration the nature of the institute and how
much academic autonomy it has or how much
?exibility the management can create even within the
university system. For example, a fully autonomous
institute has been known to make participation in this
program eligible for credits, thereby creating both a
strong incentive as well as room for experimentation.
Whereas, an institute within the university system has
been able to either provide certi?cation to students
who participate actively or even use this against
the internship or assignment requirements that the
university mandates.
Academic resources: These resources include the
teaching faculty and counselors, library, various
labs, etc., which help students conduct research,
write papers, and complete tests and assignments
successfully.
Physical resources: Obviously any Campus Company
that runs on campus will occupy some space and
will use some of the campus resources including
electricity and water.
First, space required for these activities are typically
small and students and faculty can often ?nd unused
or sparsely used space for such purposes. Additionally,
management may choose to either provide the space
and associated facilities including electricity, water
and internet, completely free of charge, or may choose
to charge something nominal. Both have been known
to be done and both have their advantages.
14 National Entrepreneurship Network
How did it start?
Circa 2007-08. Interest in entrepreneurship education
was growing around the country and the NEN network
was expanding rapidly. There was a problem though -
students part of the network, while highly enthusiastic
about entrepreneurship had no perspective of the real
world.
Most had no work experience of any kind and their
academic interaction was such that it did not expose
them adequately to the world of business or to
entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, customers
and service providers or product developers.
With the ?rm belief that there can be no better
teacher than experience itself, NEN introduced the
radical concept of Campus Company in a few colleges.
These campus companies allowed students to run
for-pro?t centers or small enterprises in their college
campuses. low on risk but high on experience and
learning, going way beyond mere textbook knowledge.
NEN Faculty Vasanti Venugopal at Mount Carmel
College, Bangalore, helped launch one of the early
campus companies for her students at MCC. The
response to this venture was extremely encouraging.
The venture ?ourished and those who started their
venture gained a lot of experience.
A faculty coordinator is usually assigned to coordinate
allocation of resources of the campus. The coordinator
monitors how things are progressing and helps in
mentoring the students on issues concerning purchases,
wastage, etc. The coordinator also brings in external
faculty where needed and provides guidance on how to
deal with situations that arise on a day to day basis. The
faculty coordinator also keeps a close watch on accounts,
ensures monthly reviews, and keeps track of whether
external people are employed.
The idea is to provide support while at the same time
enabling students to understand that these are real costs
of running a business and as such need to be accounted
for.
Why is this exciting?
Combine the factors mentioned above, add to them
real-life experience and what one has, is the very exciting
concept of youngsters getting an early entry into the world
of entrepreneurship.
Through this program, not only do young students learn
about various aspects of business – bootstrapping, team
work, building products and services and selling to
customers – they also gain insights into their own self.
This helps them take the right decisions regarding their
future options.
One student who had the Campus Company experience
felt, “I was excited about the idea of being an entrepreneur,
but I realised that it really wasn’t for me... I was not ready.”
On the other hand, another student was very positive
about the experience, and decided, “Wow, this is what I
want to be doing!”
Consider this - if, with a little effort and wholehearted
commitment, we can create more entrepreneurs. In a
few years, employment rates will increase resulting in
improved per-capita incomes!
The Thirst-e team was initially unable
to gauge how much sugar, fruit or milk
they needed on a daily basis. So they
entered into an agreement with the hostel
kitchen paying on a monthly basis, and
using some of the fruits, sugar and milk
available in the kitchen. This cut down
on wastage while also pushing up the
revenue considerably.
15 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
It however took NEN a few more years of cajoling, convincing,
experimenting, demonstrating and reorganizing before
campus companies became acceptable by both faculty
members and directors of academic institutes.
During the academic year 2012-13 alone, around 200
Campus Companies in engineering and management
institutes engaged over 4000 student entrepreneurs
running businesses that ranged from food and beverage, to
management consultancies and from robotics to furniture
retailing.
At Thakur Institute of Management,
Mumbai, the management provided the
physical space, electricity and water for
a highly subsidized fee to the team that
was running ‘Eggelicious’ a specialty egg
restaurant and a highly pro?table venture
on campus. It helps to both have a deeper
appreciation for the subsidy and also
factor in a real cost to the business.
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National Entrepreneurship Network
Fabricating Success
20 year old Pulkit Bakshi was a student of Bachelor of Business Studies at Shaheed Sukhdev
College of Business Studies, Delhi, when he started Fabrica India in Aug 2011. He tasted success early
on, generating revenues of 60 lakhs in the very second year.
Fabrica India deals in customized corporate merchandising, focusing on quality apparel, corporate
gifts and promotional products. It specializes in designing, customizing, manufacturing, printing and
delivery of T-shirts and sweatshirts, a product range popular with youngsters. It also offers a wide
range of promotional products like customized mugs, diaries, key chains, notepads, badges, bags,
stickers, etc.
It all started when Pulkit, as a representative of his ?rst venture – Brand Builders – a marketing
company, started interacting with a student from another college who was attempting to source
T-shirts for her college.

“We met many suppliers, printers, vendors, designers, fabricators and others. We realized how
unorganized this sector was and how seller-oriented the market was. But this industry had a great
potential for growth. All it required was a little organizing, basic management skills and a huge amount
of hard work.” reminisces Pulkit.
And that is where, the Campus Company initiative at this NEN institute came into the picture.
With program advisors NEN Consultant Kalpana Sinha and faculty member Anuja Mathur guiding him,
Pulkit started Fabrica India in August 2011 as a Campus Company. Zero initial investment, a couple of
friends joining the team and a zest to create something successful were all that he had at that point
in time.
Early on, Pulkit found that personal integrity and hard work were essential ingredients in the
running of Fabrica India. As well as the promises of payment in the future to those friends who helped
him during the initial phase of the venture.
“I used to sleep alongside labourers in factories in remote areas before a big consignment came in, to
ensure that we got the orders ready in time. Those days gave me an insight into this industry. It also
helped me deal with unorganized labour and build a rapport with them,” Pulkit says.
Like in most other entrepreneurial ventures, the challenges were many.
Balancing college studies while being a student entrepreneur was the ?rst one. “Getting people to take
us seriously and judge our work by our passion, professionalism and skills and not just by our age or
past experience was fairly daunting,” recollects Pulkit.
From a business perspective, lack of initial funding was a major challenge as was ?nding the right
suppliers, service providers and customer base.
While learning to deal with the unorganized labour sector may have seemed dif?cult, working
with friends who were not being paid any salary (during the initial days of Fabrica India) was no
mean task either, Pulkit discovered. He soon realized that he would need to carefully separate his
17 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
personal dealings with his friends from his professional ones if he wanted to maintain both
relationships.
Pulkit’s faculty mentor Anuja Mathur, says, “Campus Companies allow students an opportunity
to explore their innovative ideas and put them into implementable and pro?table business plans.
Students experience the challenges and rewards of day to day business management.”
According to Pulkit, “It has been a bumpy ride where I have learnt something new each day. I
feel respected and honoured when I am referred to as an entrepreneur.” “It has been a humbling
experience too. It has strengthened my con?dence, making me fearless and ready to take on
anything,” he adds.
Pulkit leveraged the NEN network to reach out and get connected to other institutes in order to
expand his customer base. Additionally, the program structure allowed him to gain knowledge about
organizational skills and team work while also developing respect and appreciation for the knowledge
and skills of others in his team.
Ask him about dealing with competition from established players and Pulkit responds con?dently,
“Our after sales services and annual warranty and guarantee are what distinguish us from our
competitors.”
Through this Campus Company venture, Pulkit has learnt how to successfully run a company - starting
from ground level and taking it to greater heights. So much so that Pulkit believes there is enough
value in the company for it to get to the next level and survive outside the campus.
“We hope to mark the most prominent streets of the world with Fabrica stores soon,” says a
con?dent Pulkit.
“From being initially addressed as bhaiya like a street hawker, to gaining the status of the CEO of
a full-?edged successful startup company and being addressed as “Mr. Bakshi” or “Sir” is an
experience I cannot explain in words,” says Pulkit with a smile.
Company name Fabrica India
No. of core team members 1 + 5 who initially supported the
venture
Industry retail
Market (On campus/beyond campus) Beyond campus
Initial investment `. 0
Revenue `. 60 lakhs
(Sep 2012 – Aug 2013)
Participating students who became 1
entrepreneurs on graduation
18 National Entrepreneurship Network
Stakeholders
A Campus Company Program engages various kinds of stakeholders and it is important to look at them all.
In addition to college management and consultants, the stakeholders in a Campus Company Program include:
1. Aspiring student entrepreneurs
Teams of three-seven student entrepreneurs who sign up to start and run a venture on campus; several such
teams can be part of the program
2. Faculty advisors
Faculty members knowledgeable about and interested in venture creation, of?cially acting as advisors to the
Campus Company teams
3. Entrepreneur advisors
Entrepreneurs in the community, or alumni entrepreneurs who sign up to advise the Campus Company teams on
practical aspects of launching and running a new venture
Aspiring student entrepreneurs
Any aspiring entrepreneur is a good candidate for the Campus Company Program. However, like most intense
programs, a student who is already exposed to entrepreneurial learning through other campus programs is more
likely to be able to make the most of the experience. Students who bring an open mindset, right expectations and high
levels of motivation sustain the required energy and creativity for the Campus Company experience.
Faculty advisors
The program and the experience of advising a team of aspiring student entrepreneurs can be highly enriching and
exciting for a faculty member. Any energetic, progressive, open-minded and ?exible faculty member, who has some
exposure to startups or entrepreneurship development, is well quali?ed to become a faculty advisor. The only other
quali?cation is willingness to make time to do this in a regular manner with the student teams. A faculty member can,
with his/her enthusiasm and thoughtful questioning, with prodding and encouragement, enable the students to have
a highly fruitful learning experience.
Entrepreneur advisors
Given that we are talking about running a for-pro?t venture, any venture on campus will certainly bene?t from having
entrepreneurs on its advisory board. This not only brings in the practitioner’s perspective but also helps the company
take hard calls when required, on shutting down the business if it is not viable, or changing the structure of the
management team if that is what will help the venture.
The faculty members on such a board end up having a much richer experience as they work alongside entrepreneurs.
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19 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Such a board also prevents faculty members from becoming excessively engaged in running the company, a trap that
many faculty members will fall into the moment the venture starts hitting some challenges. The important thing to
remember in such situations is that the platform is to enable students to learn and while it will do well to mentor
and guide them, letting them learn from things they successfully do and those that they don’t is equally important.
Running the venture for them so they become pro?table is not the goal!
Mentoring can make the difference between success and
failure in a startup.”
- Badri Seshadri, Entrepreneur Advisor, Founder and CEO, New Horizon Media
Role of the advisory board
Mode of functioning
Advisors bring different kinds of value to the Campus Company teams. While they may decide their own mode of
functioning with the teams, they bring essential values like team building, risk taking, etc. to the program to enable
better learning for the students.
It is important that the program facilitator sets the right expectations with advisors at the beginning – both on the
nature of the work that they are signing up for, as well as the how and how often they would be required to contribute.
Executing the business plan
Helping the teams execute their business plan is one of the primary needs to gain traction in the company. As advisors
guide teams in this, helping them realize that business plans are not cast in stone and will evolve as they learn more
about the market and the customer is equally important.
Review and reporting
The advisors could organize their working in such a way that teams would be required to review progress of the
venture at regular intervals. This is a highly rewarding experience for the advisors as well as the teams as they can
track progress, and gain deeper insights into their experiences as they progress.
Given that a Campus Company is typically leveraging campus resources, it is also a good idea for teams to report
progress. During the review process, teams may look at several things that affect the day-to-day running of the
company including costs, pricing, sales performance, customer growth, production ef?ciency and quality. They may
also consider new products or drop product lines, and even change the focus of the venture by pursuing a totally new
idea if they ?gure that the idea is not panning out because of some critical weaknesses in the business model.
20 National Entrepreneurship Network
Caselet: A Different Kind of Mentor
You may have heard a lot about Campus Companies and their achievements. But this
is not a typical mentor-mentee story. This is an inspirational tale of a mentor who went
an extra mile to help her ambitious mentees ful?l their dream by providing them angel
investment.
When Swaraj Sarkar, Sathyananda M. R. and Susmera V. J. of Vidyavardhaka College of
Engineering (VVCE), Mysore, came up with the idea of V Think, their ideas were vague.
Unstructured thoughts, lack of business acumen and almost zero startup funding were
the issues that plagued the team. Their faculty mentor Manjula Murthy successfully led
them through a structured process to help de?ne their business idea more concretely.
Not only did clarity emerge, it soon became a winning proposition.
Think today is a successful subscription-based magazine that talks to the students on
campus about that which is closest to their hearts - placements and events.
Manjula Murthy went a step ahead and became an angel investor in the company. The
team of student entrepreneurs Swaraj, Sathyananda and Susmera feel that as an angel
investor, she has made a fundamental positive impact on this Campus Company.
She has helped them become more focused, have stronger belief in themselves and take
action to convert their dreams to reality. A couple of important things that the team has
learnt are that there are no free lunches, and once you get investment, you are even more
accountable!
For Manjula Murthy, it was about recognizing a winning proposition and showing her faith
in the team by investing in the project.
Additionally, the teams will have to present a ?nal report on their company, its ?nancials and workings to the
management of the campus. This enables greater transparency as well as strengthens the program through higher
buy-in from the management.
21 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
22 National Entrepreneurship Network
Program Fundamentals
As you launch this program at your campus, you will
need to work out the manner in which the program will
be structured and run.
Key decisions
Selecting a Campus Company
What kind of companies can be part of the program? Any
kind - there are no rules!
Over the years, Campus Companies have included
cafeterias, stationery stores, eco-friendly product
manufacturers, computer training institutes, door
delivery laundry and customized T-shirt design
companies.
Laksheya Health Club, a company started in Shri Krishna
Institute of Management, Coimbatore, is a health
club that provides ?tness programs with yoga and
self-defense classes. V Think in Vidya Vardhaka
College of Engineering, Mysore, provides campus
related news including information on placements
and college events.
Sparkle, in Jyoti Nivas College, Bangalore, makes and
sells environment-friendly cloth bags in a bid to make
the campus a plastic-free zone. Let’s Talk Books,
an initiative by students of the K J Somaiya
Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai,
is a circulating library with an online catalogue.
The type of Campus Company your students could start
is only limited by their imagination and the resources
that they are able to tap into. The point is that a
Campus Company is meant to provide an experience of
running ’a’ business rather than ‘the’ business which a team
may be capable of running. For instance, for a technology
student, running a juice shop could be just as relevant as
running any other business. It provides an opportunity to
?gure out the business model, overcome challenges of
acquiring and keeping customers and manage product
quality.
Campus Companies in technical institutes
“My students are technologists, so what can they do
around technology?” is still a question that may come up
at an engineering campus.
Let us examine why technology-focused Campus
Companies may make a dif?cult proposition:
1. Technology companies have a longer
lead-time before going to market - product
development and testing takes time. Typically,
serious technology companies have a lead-time
of three-?ve years before they acquire a single
customer.
Our students typically engage in a Campus
Company for about a year; this makes it
dif?cult for them to work on technology
products. Of course, a technology company
can be handed over from one team to
another – however that has its own challenges.
Finding a team that has the same passion and
interest to solve the same problem is an issue.
Additionally, continuing a task from where
someone else has left off, is not as seamless
as it is in a relay race. Often, a great deal
of knowledge is lost in the process and this
may regress development of the product
as it is handed over from one team to
4
23 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
another. The biggest issue is that when several
teams work on a single product, no one team
gets a substantial experience either in product
development or in running a company, which is the
critical goal of a Campus Company.
2. Technology product development calls for larger
investment of funds upfront. This can pose strong
challenges for the team that might want to work
on a product development project. They would also
need to be mature and credible enough to be able
to raise this kind of money from real / external
investors.
3. Technology product companies are also less
likely to have a market in the immediate
vicinity of the students, that is, their own campus
and its neighborhood.
There is a common belief in technology institutes
that technologists should not be running service
companies, since it does not put to use their
learning. But the services space can be a suitable
space for students to explore that entreprenurial
talent. For example, Aricore, founded at the Vellore
Institute of Technology, Vellore, provides website
development services to various clients.
This is not to say that technology companies don’t
happen. In this booklet itself, we have shared with
you the story of D-Incitare, which had a simple tea/
coffee warmer developed and sold by students. Also
there may be plenty of opportunity for development
of mobile and other application-based products that
the students could develop in a short span of time.
All of the above can and should be encouraged; the
point we emphasize here is that we need to have
the right expectations and assess the totality of the
experience that the student team gains when going
down a certain route.
Number of companies
How many companies? There is no right answer
to this.
Faculty and administrators should take a call based
on how many teams they can manage in a program,
what the demand is on campus, and how many
solid ideas and opportunities and teams exist
during a given year that may be worth considering
in the program.
We recommend that at least two teams be
considered in a program. This is because, teams
learn as much from another’s experience
as their own if discussions are facilitated
effectively. The Atharva College of Engineering,
Mumbai, successfully runs a total of ?ve Campus
Companies concurrently.
On the other hand, more than ?ve could become a
handful since the program calls for some structured
24 National Entrepreneurship Network
interactions with an advisory board, to help maximize
learning.
Team sizes
How many team members in each company? Again,
there is no one answer to this.
A company may start with two or ?ve or even have
ten people. This will depend upon not just the type
of company and the resources that it demands but
also on how the teams come together.
Typically, in a team there are one or two individuals
who take leadership roles. The important thing is
to encourage these leaders to work with
team members with complementary skills
so that there is right balance in the enterprise
and also so the students realize that entrepreneurship
is a team game.
Lifespan
How long should a typical Campus
Company run? Again, there isn’t a hard-and-
fast rule about duration, since it will have to be
tailored to and ?t into campus schedules.
But practically speaking, given that the
students would be juggling academic and other
activities along with running the enterprise, and
in order to facilitate as complete an experience as
possible, it may be best to provide them a
complete academic year to do this. Campus Companies
are typically known to last from six months to a year.
There are several ways in which the
management could make the program more convenient
for students. The Campus Company Program
could be offered as part of an
entrepreneurship course, as a standalone
experiential course or as a separate certi?cate or
credit program. Many institutes also may be able
to consider the students’ experience in running
a Campus Company against a requirement for a
project or a summer internship.
New start-up vs. existing enterprise
Should a successfully run Campus Company be
handed over to the next team?
The Campus Company Program exists to facilitate an
entrepreneurial experience for students.
Typically, that includes ?nding an opportunity,
putting together a team, gathering resources,
?nding customers and creating value.
However, sometimes, campuses may choose
to continue previous companies because they
believe they have an established business
model and therefore can and should be continued.
While this may be true, the real value in such cases
may be more managerial experience rather than an
entrepreneurial one.
25 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Besides, an important part of any opportunity
is the entrepreneur or the entrepreneurial team
– typically different teams are driven by different
passions or interests; come with different
skills and networks and therefore may want to
pursue their own ideas and not necessarily take up
something that has already been done. So
?exibility on this front is highly desirable.
Our experience indicates that projects or businesses
run by new members should be different and start
afresh each year for a complete learning experience
even if an existing Campus Company is available with a
clear succession plan.
The mechanics
A single Campus Company is its own entity and has its own
team, its own product and customers, its own method
of working and its own challenges and solutions.
However, even though each company is unique, there
are common factors that help faculty advisors support
their functioning and guide them, which are illustrated
below.
Selecting a team
A team is central to each Campus Company. Teams
may self-select or may be selected through a
process. The key criteria to selecting such a
team includes dynamism in the team and the
complementary nature of skill sets relevant to
the opportunity. Additionally, the team’s drive and
passion for what they are trying to do is equally
important.
In a highly competitive environment where large
numbers of students are clamoring to be part of such a
program, teams may compete with each other to have
their ‘business idea’ selected for setting up the Campus
Company. That allows for the strongest opportunities to
be chosen for the program.
In real life, investors bank on teams before they
do so on ideas. Helping students realize the
importance of having a team that has shared
values, aspirations and trust and at the same time
diverse skills required to make the opportunity work will
pay rich dividends in their entrepreneurial careers.
Picking the right opportunity
Teams will usually come up with different
ideas, some of them crazy or impractical ones,
before they zero down on a workable idea. They
will do so in a variety of ways—brainstorming,
mind-mapping, going out of the campus to seek
problems or even a combination of all these
options. The only guidance that is mandatory to give, is
that ideas be market-oriented, that is, centered around
the real needs of some target segment of people.
Another important guidance is the following:
student teams will have not just one but dozens
of ideas, if not more. It is important to help them
Caselet: Thirst-e
Absence of effective processes and
systems to regulate cash ?ow and stock
plus a non-suitable location were but a
couple of challenges faced by the team
when it initially launched Thirst-e at PSG
College of Technology, Coimbatore.
Mentoring by Faculty Mentor Suresh
Kumar and NEN Advisors including
Sujaya Rao helped them overcome these
challenges. The team soon understood
who their customers were and what their
needs were. A key decision of selecting
the right location too was made. As a
result, the team not only managed to revive a
dying company and but also started a second
juice centre on campus.
26 National Entrepreneurship Network
?gure out how to sift through these ideas and
evaluate them for their potential.
Most serial entrepreneurs get really good at
constantly evaluating ideas to zero down on their next
opportunity. Even within a single company, teams are
always evaluating new ideas and their potential with a
view of bettering the business model. Thus, one cannot
emphasize enough the value of developing the skill of
evaluating ideas.
Raising capital
Raising money or capital for a Campus Company is
one of the key challenges perceived by most Campus
Company teams. The questions here could range
from ‘How much money would be required?’ to
‘Where would we get the money from?’ Some
guidelines are given below.
Estimating needs
Very early on, as the teams start to scope out
the opportunity and plan the functioning of their
companies, they will have to estimate how much capital
would be needed to develop their product or service and
take it to market. This can be done as a formal exercise
guided by a faculty.
Sources of capital
Like most companies in real life, campus
start-ups are required to boot-strap. This may include
?nding cheap or easy sources of capital;
subsidized goods and services (like use of campus
space, laboratories and material); deferred payments
(long-term credit for raw materials); customer
funding; cash on sales etc. The bottom line is
that teams should be encouraged to consider all
means of starting a venture with little or no capital.
However, even with small capital requirements,
teams may be encouraged to raise them
formally. This will enable them to understand what could
be involved and prepare them for raising capital. It will
also expose them to the realities of taking money from
an investor and being accountable for it.

Prospective stakeholders who are likely to
provide funds or invest in the Campus Company
may include one or more of the following: the institute
management, E-Cell, alumni and faculty. We have
instances of other students (non-team) investing
in the company as well. In some cases, the student
entrepreneurs also bring in their own investment.
When raising formal capital from one or more sources,
teams will be required to present a case for investment to
their investors. This is a good practice as it forces the team to
carefully consider how much money they need and
how they will put it to use. It also makes them more
accountable to their investors. What is equally important
though is that teams should be prepped to raise funds
effectivly.
A classic case of raising capital through equity
divestment to public (on campus) is that of
Myriad, a Campus Company at Mount Carmel
College, Bangalore. The team there raised an
estimated capital of `30,000 required to start
the company by selling 1,500 shares at `20 each. The
company offers dividends to its shareholders every year.
Typical challenges
Once the team starts executing, you will have to guide the
teams to face challenges of varying nature. These may
range from ‘The market does not exist” to “My team is
not motivated enough to do this!”, “I have run out of money”
to “My customer is dissatis?ed” or even, “I have
under-priced my product”. While teams will tackle these
and other challenges in the course of running their
companies, a strong advisory board and a regular
mechanism to review the learnings become
very important.
27 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
28
National Entrepreneurship Network
Wheeling in Success
Running a cycle shop proved to be an important lesson in entrepreneurship for four
students from Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore. Himanshu Kumar, Abhishek Singh
Suryavanshi, Hitesh Khubchandani and Anurag Srivastava got the idea of starting
Rent a Cycle, a bike rental service, as their college campus located three
kilometers from the highway lacked public transport connectivity.
Identifying a viable business opportunity, the students collaborated with local villagers to rent
cycles out to their fellow students for commuting between their college and bus stop.
It wasn’t a smooth road for these entrepreneurs. There were many constraining
factors, the least of them being seasonal revenues and razor-thin margins. However, being
passionate about cycling helped, as did clearly identifying the need and requirement of their target
customers. The ?tness angle of cycling also appealed to their customers.
Mentored by NEN Faculty members, Dr. Priti Bakhshi and Dr. Megha Jain, the students
started out with zero initial investment and were able to generate revenue of `3,500 at
the end of the Campus Company Program. They followed a pro?t-sharing model with the
villagers, whose spare cycles were used in the venture.
Company name Rent a Cycle
No. of core team members 4
Industry Service
Market (On campus/Beyond campus) On campus
Initial investment ` 0
Revenue at the end of the program `3500
Participating students who became 3
entrepreneurs on graduation
29 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Rent a Cycle like any business depended on team effort and collaboration, and the students had
to learn this quickly to overcome several challenges, from dealing with unconventional labour to
convincing almost everyone they came across about the need for and viability of this
project. They also found leasing cycles worked better than buying them, which helped them realise
the importance of keeping investments low.
The business idea was backed by the institute as it aimed at the betterment of the rural area around the
campus. In addition, the institute provided access to courses and regular mentoring by both faculty and
entrepreneurs to deal with the day-to-day challenges of managing ?nances, sales and marketing and the
operational challenges of running the business.
NEN consultant Marlina Ramachandran says, “The institute has dedicated faculty who are
trained and experienced in entrepreneurship and work towards the vision to create and support
entrepreneurs. The students are an energetic lot and are always open to experimenting with new ideas.”
She adds that collective efforts of faculty and students helped overcome various challenges including
convincing stakeholders.
Dr. J P Upadhyay, director at the institute, feels that not only was the idea of this campus
enterprise bene?cial for the students as cycling was the best option on the narrow roads, it was
also eco-friendly and inculcated a ?tness routine. He points out, “The highlight of the venture
was that this service was provided at a very affordable price vis-a-vis the bene?t it provided to the
stakeholders.”
Rent a cycle succeeded because the students, with the support of NEN consultants and
faculty, worked on their networking and communication skills and planning and implementation
abilities. They soon developed prowess in convincing people, working as
a team and managing time effectively. Dr. Upadhyay reiterates, “a business environment
teaches students lessons that go beyond what you can ?nd in books.”
The student entrepreneurs got a taste of what it meant to be an entrepreneur and some of them are already
on the path to running their own enterprise. Such has been these students’ level of learning and richness of
experience with the Campus Company Program that they believe every student should try it once!
30 National Entrepreneurship Network
Success Factors
The primary goals of a Campus Company Program are:
- To provide exposure to the real world: helps students aspiring to be entrepreneurs gain real-world
experience in venture creation.
- To enhance life skills: The lessons of managing an enterprise will last a lifetime and help students
emerge as entrepreneurial leaders in any situation.
Success, in a Campus Company, is achieved with the overall growth and development of the student
entrepreneurs. In our experience, such students do remarkably well in many different situations including
in corporate leadership.
Students learn how to work within a team and constantly look at both the big picture and the minutae. This
helps them gain a sense of ownership and accountability and they become responsible adults.
Pro?t as a measure of success?
In Campus Companies, we must measure the effectiveness of the program in enabling learning for the
students. Pro?t alone is not a measure. Program facilitators should stay focused on mechanisms, structure
and evaluation that will result in maximizing the students’ learning.
This may sometime seem counter-intuitive; a typical challenge that program facilitators face is how pro?ts
should be regarded – is that a metric for the company’s success and if so, do more pro?table companies
mean higher success for the program?
This is not an easy question to answer – the fundamentals of a strong business do include a strong ?nancial
model after all. Hence, pro?t is a key indicator of value for any Campus Company and you will see the teams
naturally focusing on that. Their strategies, activities and decisions are rightly focused on maximizing value
for the customer and ensure higher returns for the company.
However, as facilitators of the program, our need is to focus on the primary goals of running this program
– maximizing learning. The question then is whether the pro?t that a team makes is necessarily the only
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improve-
ment, achievement, and success have no meaning.”
—Benjamin Franklin
5
31 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
indicator, or even a good one, of learning? If the program is credit-based or certi?ed, should a team that fails
to make a pro?t get a failing grade?
Let us examine this in the context of two scenarios, drawn from real-life situations faced by students, to see
how to measure effectiveness of learning:
Team A chooses to run a coffee outlet with bakery products. The campus is 20 km away from the city and
the canteen on campus serves rather unexciting food. Sounds like a good opportunity, when you have
5,000 students on campus! Within a week of opening this company, the team has broken even and in the
?rst month, has recorded a pro?t. The only lament from the team is that they cannot do it full time and
make more money.
Team B chooses to launch a cultural magazine for students. The demand is high and the revenue model
is driven by subscription and subsidized by advertising. With the ?rst edition, the sales team manages to
get advertising commitments from several businesses in town. There is elation. Advertisement creatives
are collected along with some cash advances, the magazine is printed and becomes an instant success.
Celebrations all around! Then comes the challenge of realizing the remaining dues from advertisers.
However, by now exams have kicked in and the cost of collecting the money is high because it means
taking time off from campus and driving around town. The year closes with the company showing huge
amounts in receivables on its balance sheet and no pro?t to hand out.
Can we say that Team A is a winner and Team B isn’t? Certainly not! In fact, we could not have engineered
this situation and enabled this kind of learning in any classroom environment, even if we had tried. The
hands-on experience of failure is as valuable and memorable to Team B as success is to Team A. Both are
wonderful experiences and make for very different but highly effective entrepreneurial learning.
Hence the goal of a Campus Company Program is to facilitate these experiences in order to enable effective
learning. Every step involved in a Campus Company such as ?nding the ?rst set of customers and making
the ?rst sale, acquiring additional customers, pricing, costing, handling suppliers/vendors, breaking even,
generating revenue, ensuring survival, ?guring out a viable business model and in the process, giving up
32 National Entrepreneurship Network
an idea and pursuing another, etc. are all what de?ne a successful Campus Company experience. The
measures of the program must take these into account.
Value for stakeholders
Let us consider how the program impacts two of the stakeholders — students entrepreneurs and faculty
advisors.
It is imperative that in designing the program, we think about these stakeholders and how to incentivize
them to take full ownership and participate actively. In the long run, this will be useful not just in helping
students learn better but also in making the program become sustainable on campus.
Students learning
Maximizing learning through reviewing, re?ning and reporting progress periodically is the goal.
The prime bene?t of starting and managing a Campus Company is the learning that students undergo
through the entire experience. Student teams involved in creating and running a Campus Company will be
able to understand various aspects related to venture creation, including:
• Shaping a business model – what to deliver, for whom and how
• Developing and implementing a business plan
• Raising and managing money
• Building a team
• Garnering, leveraging and managing resources
• Understanding market dynamics and responding to the market
- Acquiring and retaining customers
- Identifying new product lines
- Increasing customer base
- Managing sales and distribution
• Handling operations on a day-to-day basis
• Iterating the business model to sustain venture growth challenges
While, by launching and running their companies, students will do all of the above and more, the program
itself must create review mechanisms for teams to track progress along with their advisors.
This is because experiences gain context and become insights when students step back and re?ect on them
and start to understand what affects success and failure in different situations. The added advantage of a
formal and ongoing review mechanism in the program is the opportunity to learn from peers apart from the
feedback of the mentors.
The teams should be encouraged to review progress of the venture at regular intervals – a week or fortnight
in the ?rst few months of setting up - to ensure effective working of the business model. Later, as the
venture stabilizes, the reviews can be scheduled on a monthly basis and subsequently once each quarter.
33 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Reviews typically focus on challenges concerning cost analysis and implications, sales performance, and
customer growth. They help make improvements in production, encourage study of the distribution or sales
processes, consider the possibility of introducing new products or dropping a product line, and may even
change the focus of the venture by suggesting that a totally new idea be pursued.
Incentives for students
A critical goal in entrepreneurship development is to inculcate a culture of entrepreneurial leadership on
campus. Showcasing the Campus Company Program and the teams helps build that culture and positions
entrepreneurship as an attractive career option.
Additionally, incentives should be created to enable better participation of team members. Some approaches
to consider:
o Autonomous institutions can create a credit program or elective in the form of a project that can be
evaluated through grades/credits/marks included in the regular assessment.
For example, Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, has integrated the Campus Company into their
co-curricular activities, and all students in the Campus Company team are given an equal number of
extra credits.
o University-af?liated institutions can add this to an existing entrepreneurship course and performance of
Campus Company students can be evaluated and graded for internal assessment.
Caselet: Tilzmatic Tech
Student Entrepreneur, Vikash Kumar, from International Management Institute
(IMI) Delhi who started the Company, Tilzmatic Tech, bene?ted a lot from the
program.
According to him, “Having bootstrapped with `30,000, I developed four apps
in the ?rst year of launching my company and now have a total of 22 apps. My
company has now merged with Hashtag Technologies. We have also struck
a partnership deal with Intel, generating revenue of `70 Lakhs till date. The
Campus Company Program has increased my con?dence level thousand times
over. I was invited to Stanford University to represent my company and was
offered 50,000 dollars to sell my company while I was there. I turned down the
offer since the company was more valuable to me and I wanted to take it to
newer heights. The Campus Company Program has taught me to look at
long-term bene?ts rather than short-term ones.”
34 National Entrepreneurship Network
It helped me improve my patience levels. It requires a lot of time to
motivate students but it’s a very gratifying process. The management
appreciates my efforts and that makes a difference when it comes to job
satisfaction.”
- Megha Jain, Faculty Mentor, Jaipuria institute of Management, Lucknow, Campus
Company- Rent a cycle
35 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Honors certi?cation can be offered to the teams that run the campus companies after, or during the
course. This way, not every student in the class will be expected to do this, but room can be made
for interested students. At the same time, if what is happening in these companies becomes part of
classroom discussions during the course, it could make for very interesting learning opportunities for
everyone.
o In engineering colleges, it can be a separate program for those with additional interest in entrepreneurship,
with a certi?cate for participation or a Campus Company could ful?l the credit needs of an assignment.
Credits for a Campus Company may be allocated based on a team’s performance in opportunity evaluation,
articulation of business model, execution and running of the company and sharing learning within the
team and with the advisors and management.
Faculty incentives
It is clear that Campus Company Programs are extremely useful, interesting and exciting learning tools for
students. Faculty members too gain directly as a result of mentoring student entrepreneurs and observing
how the latter gain deep insights and experiences into the complexities of venture creation. The insights
gained feed back into the faculty’s knowledge and experience base and helps them better connect theoretical
concepts of venture creation to the actual practice of entrepreneurship.
Faculty who invest their time and energy in entrepreneurship development, both by gaining knowledge and
experience themselves and then by guiding students through formal and informal programs, are helping
introduce and establish a new paradigm in enterprise education in India. It is necessary to create adequate
structures to incentivize them.
Some of the best practices that we recommend to management of institutes for ensuring success of
entrepreneurship programs on campus include recognizing the contribution of such faculty at important
forums on campus including on the institute website and at campus events. Additionally, their contribution
in entrepreneurship development should be made an important measure of their performance. Several
campuses are now starting to link monetary bene?ts to their contribution as well.
That faculty members are starting to be appreciated and acknowledged for their work in this area is best
expressed by Faculty Mentor Dr. Dipankar Sarkar, Dream institute of Technology, Kolkata who mentored
students of the Campus Company – D-Incitare, “The recognition I’ve received has been great, as we are now
part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Center, get paid regularly and are appreciated
constantly, which is a big motivation.”
Dr. Dipankar also acknowleges the Campus Company Program for having helped him gain practical
knowledge, “Now I know how to monitor progress, what to look for in a business plan, how to advertise, sort
out issues and use what I have learnt, while facing challenges with other companies.”
As a result of driving the Campus Company Programs, faculty get into strong mentoring roles, providing
speci?c and niche guidance to students along the way. They get an opportunity to stay updated on market
knowledge, and follow market trends with a keen eye. This helps them become experts in their chosen
domain too.
36 National Entrepreneurship Network
Every year out of 180 students, around 20 students go for new
venture creation. This proves how encouraging this program
is, as there is a strong intent among students to become
entrepreneurs after they graduate.”
- Ashutosh Khanna, Faculty Mentor , International Management
Institute, Delhi, Campus Company-Tilzmatic Tech
A Sustainable Program
Institutionalizing the program
A Campus Company Program is a highly experiential
program and enables both students
and faculty to experience and implement
a ‘participant-centered’ approach to learning.
This has tremendous impact on not only
their learning about entrepreneurship
but also on faculty’s awareness and ability
to manage experiential learning for their
students’ bene?ts.
The rewards lie in the in?nite ways in which changes
re?ect – from more entrepreneurially savvy
students to better placements; more
young people starting companies to
successful alumni donating to the institute’s centres
of excellence; improved experiential methodology in
teaching to better faculty joining the campus because
of its enhanced brand.
This kind of change may be initiated by a
single individual, but for it to sustain on a
campus and become a way of life, speci?c
effort needs to be made both by the lead faculty
and the management, towards institutionalizing
it. The process enables and ensures that valuable
methodologies and learning become institutional
knowledge; it also ensures that the knowledge base
improves, grows and percolates through the entire
system.
That this program is bene?cial to students
and helps them develop into entrepreneurial
leaders is a given. The key questions that arise are:
How do we ensure that:
a. students gain the bene?ts of this
6
37 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
program year on year?
b. the program grows in effectiveness over time?
c. adequate resources including faculty attention
and time are allocated to it?
It makes logical sense to integrate the
program within the academic and/or essential
skill-building requirements for students. If this were done,
the program is not run at the whims or interest of any one
faculty alone but becomes recognized and accepted as an
ongoing program of high value at the campus.
Permanent programs
At an autonomous institute like Mount Carmel,
Bangalore, students from different departments
from the ?nal year of the graduation program
(undergraduate in the western context) participate in
the Campus Company activity. Each student based on
the evaluation of the faculty advisory panel is able to use
their work on the program towards a pre-determined
number of course credits for their ?nal program.
At Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai,
a private institute af?liated to Anna
University, Chennai, the program is ?oated as a
certificate program. Students work on the Campus
Companies outside of their class hours; teams are
inter-disciplinary and even from different years
(typically year 1 to 3).
In an ideal scenario, it is recommended that Campus
Companies be housed within the Student
Entrepreneurship Center / Entrepreneur Center of
Excellence along with the courses in entrepreneurship,
internship programs, mentoring unit and innovation
program. Campuses that have not yet set up one
may consider doing so to institutionalize the
entrepreneurship effort.
Some colleges including Saveetha Engineering College,
Chennai, have used the students work and experience
in the Campus Companies to ful?l their assignment
requirements in both engineering and management
programs. A Campus Company Program is a highly
effective assignment and more than adequately ful?lls
the requirements of any traditional assignment that the
university mandates.
The best route to institutionalize this program, indicative
of the maturity of the program itself, would be
The Campus Company Program is part of the course curriculum
we offer, and is credit-based, which ensures students are
not trying to balance between academic commitments and
the venture simultaneously, thus helping them give their very best and
maximizing value from the program.”
- Ashutosh Khanna, Faculty Mentor, International Management Institute, Delhi,
Campus Company- Tilzmatic Tech
38 National Entrepreneurship Network
Atharva College of Engineering,
Mumbai, has initiated formal credits by
making campus companies a part of a
formal course in entrepreneurship. This
ensures that there is legitimate time
allocated for this activity and that the
motivation of the students and faculty
remains high.
to make this a part of an introductory course
in entrepreneurship; at the University of
Berkeley, California, this is one of the more popular
entrepreneurship courses.This approach works well
for both the faculty and the students because the
course uses live student companies as their learning tool
enriching both the learning and teaching
experience. Not every student who is in the course needs
to also run a company. But the students who are running
the company can be evaluated purely on the basis of their
experience; while the other students may have to do
different assignments, presentations or evaluation
and analysis.
I strongly believe that the Campus Company
Program should be a part of the formal credit
system as it gives practical knowledge to the
students and helps them get prepared for placements.”
?Faculty mentor Dr. Dipankar Sarkar, Dream institute of Technology,
Campus Company- D-Incitare
39 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Campus Company teaches students that employment is not the only
option and that they can start a business too. It fosters a culture of
innovation and entrepreneurship. The program provides students an
opportunity to experience creating businesses while still at college,
equipping them to go out into the world to start any venture they choose to.”
- Annie Jacob, Director, KCG College of Technology, Chennai
40
National Entrepreneurship Network
Hot is Great
It was the desperate need for hot cups of coffee while preparing for exams late at
night that led to D-Incitare being founded by Sankarsan Mukherjee, Moubony Das
and Ekta Tahlani, Engineering students of Dream Institute of Technology, Calcutta.
Sankarsan and his friends developed an innovative portable USB-powered tea-coffee
warmer capable of keeping beverages warm up to 60-70 degree Celsius.
A Computer Engineering student building a consumer appliance product was not
something most people expected or encouraged. Sankarsan was in fact discouraged
by many of his well-wishers from pursuing his ‘weird’ idea.
However, the entrepreneurial streak in Sankarsan could not be contained.
Sankarsan founded D-Incitare in Nov 2011 with the inspiration and knowledge
he gained through the entrepreneurship courses he had attended and with the
encouragement of NEN Consultant Subhabrata Bhattacharjee and Faculty Mentor
Dr. Dipankar Sarkar.
As is common with a start-up, challenges were many. Right from getting investments
to understanding the market to marketing the product, the team faced hurdles at
each step. To add to this, the engineering course they were pursuing was an intensive
program with very little time to spare.
Marketing the product was another major challenge. “People were initially reluctant
to buy our product as they already had coffee-makers and did not want to spend
any more money on our product.” recollects Sankarsan. This problem was indeed a
serious one as none of them had any sales or marketing background or experience.
NEN’s webinars on Marketing and related topics came to the rescue; Sankarsan
diligently invested in self-learning to scope the market better and formulate a
strategy for convincing customers to buy his product.
He also put his knowledge to test, running surveys about the product, its usefulness
and USP – the effort paid off in multiple ways. Not only did he get a better handle
of what people liked or did not care about his product but also learnt the basics of
selling. And most importantly D-Incitare bagged its ?rst order for 500 devices from
an Indian IT Services company.
The team quickly learnt where their market lay.. They started selling the product in
bulk - as a corporate gift item and not as an end-user product that would usually be
41 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
available in a home appliances shop. This helped them get good orders and create a
strong differentiating factor for their product in that category.
Starting D-Incitare, and going through the rigors of the Campus Company Program has
been an enriching experience for the student entrepreneurs far beyond the engineering
degree that they had originally signed up for.
According to Sankarsan, “This program not only guides us towards our goals, it also
provides a platform for budding entrepreneurs like us to show-case our product and
launch it successfully in the market.”
Sankarsan feels that “Campus Company Program should be there in every college,
especially engineering colleges, because students here don’t have any managerial and
marketing skills.”
NEN consultant Subhabrata Bhattacharjee believes that the driving force behind a
successful venture is a motivated team and a good leader, both of which D-Incitare was
strong in.
After graduation from college, Sankarsan and his team are currently exploring the
option of re-launching the product with some changes including a temperature
regulator and the feasibility of using the product to warm other beverages too. They
plan to ?le for a patent within the next few months.
The college ecosystem too has changed after introduction of the Campus Company
Program. Director
and faculty mentor
Dr. Dipankar Sarkar
observes that after
witnessing the success
of Campus Company
Program, more
students are coming
up with ideas. He
endorses the idea that,
“Campus companies
give value to student’s
imagination and
dreams.”
Probably one of the most important aspects of a Campus Company is that, one can
learn from one’s mistakes in a relatively safe environment. And gain tons of con?dence
in the process!
Company name D-Incitare
No. of core team members 3
Industry Appliance manufacturing
Market (On campus/Beyond campus) Beyond campus
Initial investment ` 20,000
Revenue at the end of the program `5.4 lakhs
Participating students becoming 0
entrepreneurs on graduation
42 National Entrepreneurship Network
NEN AND ITS COMMUNITY
National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) inspires, educates and supports high-potential
entrepreneurs to create high-value jobs. NEN does this by building institutional capacity and
a robust entrepreneurial eco-system.
The Trust
Initiated in 2003 by the Wadhwani Foundation, the non-pro?t NEN was co-founded with IIT
Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad, BITS-Pilani, SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, and the
Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore.
NEN’s operations in India are managed by K Srikrishna, its Executive Director. Trustees
include Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, Chairman of the Wadhwani Foundation and Sunita Singh,
Co-founder and Senior Director of NEN.
The Network
Today, NEN represents India’s largest and most vibrant entrepreneurial community. The
backbone of the NEN Community comprises of more than 550 member academic institutes
with 1200 entrepreneurship faculty and 400 student E Cells; NEN E Clubs, driven by the NEN
Alumni and open to the public. These bodies organize an astonishing breadth and depth of
programs across the country that create and support entrepreneurs. In addition, the NEN
members support each other individually to realize their entrepreneurial ambitions.
43 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program
Wadhwani Foundation
Founded in 2003, the Wadhwani Foundation embarked upon its mission of economic accel-
eration by focusing on leveraging India’s growing human potential. Subsequently, the Foun-
dation expanded into the US and other countries.
India is expected to add 250-300 million people to the workforce by 2022. It is imperative that
large-scale job creation and skill development supported by public policies are needed not
only to accelerate economic growth but also to avoid demographic disaster.
During the last decade, Wadhwani Foundation launched ?ve major initiatives in India to
address the above need by promoting entrepreneurial and career skills, creating opportunities
for the disabled, encouraging innovation, and catalyzing policy changes.
In the US, to address the persistently high youth and displaced-worker unemployment issue,
Wadhwani Foundation launched the ‘Race to a Job’ initiative in 2012. This initiative leverages
technology to bridge the gap between the skills acquired in high schools and community
colleges and those required by the industry.
44 National Entrepreneurship Network
NEN Partners
Amongst global foundations, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and the Goldman
Sachs 10,000 Women Program have partnered with NEN for speci?c program in women
leadership and women’s mentoring and training.
NEN maintains a public-private partnership with the Government of India through its
Department of Science and Technology (DST). This partnership goes to support NEN’s
capacity building work and training of entrepreneurs. NEN is the primary driver for a joint
program currently underway to develop best practices, metrics and methodologies for
successful incubation and innovation programs in India’s engineering institutions.
Amongst corporations, the Tata Group has been a consistent supporter and partner of NEN
across multiple years actively building the entrepreneurial eco-system in India particularly
by creating a key recognition and showcase platform for student entrepreneurs and young
start-ups.
Technology giant IBM has also supported NEN over multiple years including NEN’s mentoring
platform. IBM scientists, management and employees across the organization have actively
volunteered their time to work towards mentoring and helping entrepreneurs.
SAP Global has partnered with NEN to focus on continually building up more mentoring
capacity and plan to impact entrepreneur growth positively by creating and supporting high
quality mentors.
Fab Women Foundation Trust works with NEN to identify bottlenecks and challenges in
women entrepreneurs’ growth and scale-up, and to provide support to overcome these
barriers and achieve their growth potential.
Helion Venture Partners, Facebook and Intuit have been other corporate supporters and
sponsors of various NEN Activities. Microsoft partners with NEN to provide entrepreneurs
with access to development tools through its Dreamspark and Bizspark.
45 How to Launch and Manage a Campus Company Program

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