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Volume 1 Issue1 January 2010

Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management

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E-Cell Objectives:

 Manifesting the latent entrepreneurial spirit of the youth.

 The cell aims to bring out the entrepreneurial spirit in budding managers and provide
them with the vital support system to set up new ventures.
 The prime focus of E cell is to develop a sustainable and encouraging platform that
supports people across the globe in starting up; thereby realizing their ideas and
converting them to reality.

E-Cell Vision:

―To establish ourselves as a complete Incubation Centre providing support across

all facets of entrepreneurship and throughout all stages of entrepreneurial ventures.‖

E-Cell Mission:

―To foster and sustain the spirit of Entrepreneurship amongst students across the emerging
entrepreneurs and provide them with a platform to convert their ideas to businesses. We
aim to foster the Spirit of Entrepreneurship amongst the masses at large.‖

About E-Spire:

It is a monthly E-magazine by E-Cell of Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management,

Pune. The vision with which E-Spire is launched is to Inspire the students who Aspire
to become successful entrepreneurs.
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Contents

DIRECTOR’S ADDRESS
04

ENTREPRENEURSHIP @ CAMPUS
05

WHAT IT TAKES TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR

08

THE TRAIN TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP

11
THE E-WAY
13
WATERMAN OF RAJASTHAN
15

INNOVATIVE INDIAN TEENS TURN CASH RICH ENTREPRENEURS

17

THE B-PLAN OF THE MONTH: “BEST4U”

19
WHAT AN IDEA
23
ALL ARE INVITED!
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Message from the Director

The word entrepreneur is derived from the French
entreprendre, meaning “to undertake.” The
entrepreneur is one who undertakes to organize,
manage, and assume risks of a business. The
entrepreneur is the aggressive catalyst for change in the
world of business. Some of the key characteristics of the
entrepreneur are personal initiative, ability to consolidate
resources, management skills, a desire for autonomy,
and risk taking. Other characteristics include
aggressiveness, competitiveness, goal-oriented behavior,
confidence, opportunistic behavior, intuitiveness, reality
based actions, ability to learn from mistakes, and the
ability to employ human skills. There are several myths
in the society about entrepreneurs. Some of them are
entrepreneurs are Doers and Not thinkers, are Born and
not Made, are Academic and Social misfits, etc.

Many well known universities and B-Schools have

introduced specialized programs in entrepreneurship. These programs help students to think out of
box, provide them disciplined approach for understanding business, provide them tools to write
effective business plans, train students to work in teams and pull resources together. There is no
hard and fast rule that one must have worked in industry or have some work experience before one
can be an entrepreneur. There are many successful entrepreneurs who have created successful
businesses without any formal education, although education does help students in understanding
fundamentals in selected area of study. At SITM, I would like to see a thriving culture where students
challenge themselves to think beyond the obvious, brainstorm among them to explore possibilities of
converting ideas into their dream ventures, incubate ideas, and chart strategies for creating several
start ups. India has created number of inventions over past decades but the time has come for India
to create ventures which will grow into global corporations. Western world is watching India and
China for the next wave of innovations and launch of successful ventures. Renowned management
guru like Prof. Prahlad is challenging entrepreneurs to look at the bottom of the pyramid where 70% of
India lives. Believe me, Indians will have to invent, innovate, improvise, and implement for the
betterment of their lives in urban and rural India, Indians can not count on the companies from the
developed world to provide solutions to their problems.

I would like to congratulate the team at SITM who has taken this initiative in launching this news letter.
I challenge all the students at SITM to think out of box, think beyond or simply look around you and be
very observant, understand painful areas in the lives of an average person and think of solutions to
help him, I am sure SITM students will come up with several new ideas and that is the first step on the
way to be an entrepreneur. I wish lots of luck and grand success to this initiative.
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Entrepreneurship
someone could be more creative than the other in
their problem solving ability or someone might

@ Campus
simply have a broader set of definitions as to
interpretation of rules. The only prerequisite to be
creative is that people need to expose themselves
Speakers: to more creative avenues. Therefore Creativity
can’t be taught but it can be nurtured.
Mr Jishnu Debnath
[jishnudebnath@gmail.com] The speakers shared with students about their
experience with Arsh. Arsh is not just a community
Mr Amol Chavan but it is much more, it is the way of life, the Arsh
[amolchavan@gmail.com] way of life. They had many events such as Rs. 50
game, Movie screenings, Panel discussion with
Venue: C hall entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, Business
Date: 16th January 2010 Plan competition, idea generation workshop, social
Event Timings: Started at 1.20 pm & Ended at entrepreneurship, internships as startups and the
3.15 pm Green Movement –Haritima. The event like Rs. 50
game helps in taking out the new innovative ideas
Compiled By: of one and helps in teaching that to be successful
Ayushi Patni, MBA-TM 1ST Year Entrepreneur you have to be street smart. In the
Neha Isawe, MBA-TM 1ST Year game there were instances like one team sold a
business plan to a car distributer and the
distributer later had a meeting with them so they
“Man can’t discover new shores get transformed from just students to business
consultants.
unless he has the courage to lose
sight of the shore.” One of the speakers, Mr Jishnu Debnath, while
analyzing the main features of the entrepreneur,
Whenever we think about the word
said that there are only 3-4% truly novel &
innovative ideas and the rest is just the repetition
Entrepreneurship, the first question which comes of the same old things. Most of us think that to be
in our mind is “What is Entrepreneurship?” Well it an entrepreneur we need to come up with a truly
is more than a buzzword it means a lot. By new and innovative idea, but this is true only in 3-
Entrepreneurship we mean creating something of 4% cases for rest it is not. You can go for
your own, doing something for ourselves. It is Enhancement of features such as DOS to
nothing but Self Motivation. To become WINDOWS, Mechanical watch to Quartz watch and
entrepreneur what you need first is Self many more or Extension of features such as pen
Motivation, courage to take risk and confidence in with torchlight. Apart from enhancement and
one’s ability. extension you can go for Specialization also, that is
creating a niche such as low cost airlines (Ryanair,
Entrepreneurship not about making money it’s a
Easyjet), Boutique financial advisory etc.
way of life!!!

In this insightful lecture, both the speakers covered

all important aspects of the business world
concerned with Entrepreneurship. They started
with the most important question, “Can Creativity
Be Taught?” And the answer is ‘No’. It is like

After having an idea about the various formats of
innovation, the next step is to judge your idea “Is
this good idea”. Well to do this you have to search
for answers for certain questions:
Is the number of potential customers,
in other words the market s large and
growing?
Who is your customer and how you
will solve their problem?
Who is your competition?
How much better or cheaper are you
than your potential customer’s
current solution and can you
maintain that advantage?
And most importantly, are you and
your team suited to this task do you
have the right knowledge and
network in this industry?
Then comes the step where you need to document
your idea into a better way in the form of a B-Plan.
B-Plan is not a waste of time but it helps us in
having a clear picture of our idea, it helps the
investor in gaining an insight into our proposal and
also helps employees in having a clear
understanding. But the big question is: How to
make a business plan? Well a business plan
includes Executive summary, Company overview,
Market environment, Marketing and sales strategy,
Operations and a financial plan.
Speaker also talked about a very important
issuei.e. Are b-plan a waste of time?
Mr Amol Chavan started with the following quotes
and made it very clear how important a B-plan is.
’Those Who Fail To Plan, Plan O Fail’
George Hewell
6
‘In Preparing For Battle I Have
Always Found That Plans Are
Useless, But Planning Is
Indispensible‘
Duight Einstein
We make B-plan for self, investors, key employee,
and other significant people. It includes all
important aspects like executive summary,
company overview, market environment, market &
sales strategy, operations and financial plan.
The speakers gave guidance about what exactly
your business plan must talk about, like starting
with discussion of particular market opportunity;
you have to examine market that you will compete
in & explain who your customers will be. After this
only you must derive the products or services that
your company will provide. The operation that you
will put in place in company and Management
team that will implement the plan are the other
two important things that are you need to take
care of. A would-be entrepreneur must also
analyze the size & profitability of his company and
have knowledge about the present and future
scenario.
The last and final step is to approach a Venture
capitalist. You must take care of the fact that you
have only 10-15 minutes to put your business
model in front of VC’s. You must communicate the
true value to your potential customer; you must
have a proper start up strategy for formulation of
the company. Business-Plan must be drafted
covering only key points. One must approach a VC
with 2-3 ideas with a short presentation on each
say 3 slides per business plan so that you have a
better chance of getting finance.
The speakers concluded the lecture by sharing with
the students the stories of few interesting
entrepreneurs like Sahil Khan [lifestyle], Anand
Jain[IT service], Jalay Pandya [film destination],
Ankit Das[IT outsourcing] etc. The lecture ended on
the note that your idea is replicable, so don’t be
afraid to share your ideas. Thus when next time
you switch on a light or sip a cup of tea or may be
having a shave, listening to music, driving to work,

watching a movie, snuggling into a pillow; think
about making something for someone who is
somewhere out there waiting to be happy.
And remember “Entrepreneurship is not a rocket
science”.
7
Like the territorial rajas of the past, businessmen
today rule vast empires, maintain a watchful eye
inside and outside their boundaries, and protect
their turf against invaders.

What It Takes To Be
an Entrepreneur
―Entrepreneurship is neither a
science nor an art. It is a
practice.‖
– Peter Drucker.
For those who want to take the untrodden
paths, who like to break old shackles of
business with innovation, courage and
perseverance, we would like to put forth some
basic understanding about entrepreneurship.
Leadership is fundamental to entrepreneurship.
They have the tolerance for uncertainty and
change. They have the ability to deal with the
unexpected, are creative, innovative, enduring,
optimistic and independent. They have that
Eureka in their minds that makes them stand
apart from the crowd. An entrepreneur must
have a passion for what he is doing. The
important thing to remember is that he will hit
lows during the start up that will make him
question his decision. Belief in the success of
his idea and his passion for it will keep him
going. But having a mere idea does not help.
Somewhere between scribbling your idea on a
cocktail napkin and actually starting a business,
there's a process you need to carry out that
essentially determines either your success or
failure in business. Many times the would-be
entrepreneurs either become so excited about
their plan or fear to give it a try even. To go
about the business plan, logically the would-be
entrepreneurs must surely undertake a market
research first. They must understand the
importance of this research because it can help
them know whether their solution can meet the
unmet needs of the people. They must perform
SWOT analysis of their industry, product or
service; the weakness of the product or service
8
and potential threats. Then your analysis will
help you discover whether your idea has any
holes that need patching.
While thinking about initialising a business
plan, would-be entrepreneurs must
understand certain facts and myths about
entrepreneurship:
1. The risk taking myth: ―most successful
entrepreneurs take wild, uncalculated
risks in starting their companies.‖ But
as a matter of fact, highest risk often
comes later in the business, not at the
start.
2. The High-tech risk: ―Most successful
entrepreneurs start their companies with
breakthrough invention, usually
technological in nature.‖
3. The expert myth: ―Most successful
entrepreneurs have strong track records
and years of experience in industries.‖
4. The strategic vision myth: ―Most
successful entrepreneurs have a well-
developed business plan and have
researched their ideas before taking
action.‖
5. The venture capital myth: ―Most
successful entrepreneurs start their
companies with millions in venture
capital to develop their idea, buy
supplies and hire employees.
To quote an example- Bill Gates and
Paul Allen failed to receive venture
capital for Microsoft.
A lot of effort is also involved in formulating
an efficient business plan for the new
venture.
Firstly, the primary value of your business plan
will be to create a written outline that evaluates
all aspects of the economic viability of your
business venture including a description and
analysis of your business prospects. it will
define and focus your objective using
appropriate information and analysis. You can

use it as a selling tool in dealing with important
relationships including your lenders, investors
and banks. Your business plan can uncover
omissions and/or weaknesses in your planning
process. One must avoid long- term
projections. Place some reasonable limits on
long-term, future projections.(Long-term means
over one year.) Better to stick with short-term
objectives and modify the plan as your business
progresses. Too often, long-range planning
becomes meaningless because the reality of
your business can be different from your initial
concept.
Business Plan Format
The Business Plan format is a systematic
assessment of all the factors critical to your
business purpose and goals.
A Vision Statement: This will be a concise
outline of your business purpose and goals.
The People: By far, the most important
ingredient for your success will be yourself.
Focus on how your prior experiences will be
applicable to your new business.
Your Business Profile: Define and describe
your intended business and exactly how you
plan to go about it. Try to stay focused on the
specialized market you intend to serve.
Economic Assessment: Provide a complete
assessment of the economic environment in
which your business will become a part.
Explain how your business will be appropriate
for the regulatory agencies and demographics
with which you will be dealing.
Hence a effective business plan must include a
a sound business concept, understanding of the
market, a healthy, growing and stable industry,
capable management, able financial control, a
consistent business focus, a consistent business
focus and include plans for conducting business
online.
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But sometimes the businesses fail.
The entrepreneur is ultimately the secret of the
success. For many successful business owners,
failure was never an option. Armed with drive,
determination, and a positive mindset, these
individuals view any setback as only an
opportunity to learn and grow. Most
millionaires possess average intelligence. What
sets them apart is their openness to new
knowledge and their willingness to learn
whatever it takes to succeed.
Why Do Businesses Fail?
* Failure to anticipate market trends. Lack of
market research when entering new markets,
results in poor sales and return on investment.
* Overspending. Spending too much on
frivolous luxuries instead of products and
services that improve the bottom line.
* Poor cash flow control. Paying creditors too
early, buying too much stock or giving
customers payment terms that are too long.
These can all lead to a lack of working capital
and cash flow problems.
* Failure to listen to customers. Listen to your
customers and adapt accordingly.
* Lack of innovation. Some businesses never
change, but they lose their market share when a
new company comes along with a new way of
doing things
* Loss of financial support or investment. If an
investor pulls out, you may find it hard to
attract another one in time, and
* Reluctance to seek professional services.
Finally if all care is taken and all rules of the
game are followed, it does not take much to
become a successful entrepreneur.
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―To lead people, walk beside them …

As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
The next best, the people honor and praise.
The next, the people fear;
and the next, the people hate …
When the best leader‘s work is done the people say,
―We did it ourselves!‖
Lao- Tsu

Author:

Navsangeet Kaur

Author is an MBA student, 1ST Year at SITM, Pune.


The Train to
Entrepreneurship
How many of us have dreamt of starting
something of our own? And how any of us are
going to actually do it? What is it that stops us
from taking the plunge?
Experience it is you say? So where do we get
the experience of entrepreneurship? Sitting in
classrooms? Reading books? Doing MBA?
How about cutting the chase and getting
straight to task.
Why not see what an entrepreneur actually
does. Talking to him. Asking him the three
questions -what he does, how he does it and the
most critical why he does it!
And how about asking these questions to
twenty five of them? Across sectors like
manufacturing,services,environment,tourism,ed
ucation,energy,health,infrastructure,mobile
telephony !Ok let‘s make the deal even
sweeter. Why not see the context of their
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business? Especially if your interest lies in
social entrepreneurship and you enjoy
travelling!
Well then here‘s something – I take great
pleasure in introducing the phenomenon called
as “Tata Jagriti Yatra “that is sweeping the
nation !
Quoting from the yatra website itself,
“Tata Jagriti Yatra is an annual train journey
that takes hundreds of India's highly motivated
youth (with some participation of international
students) between the ages of 20-25 and
experienced professionals, with age above 25,
on an eighteen day national odyssey,
introducing them to unsung heroes of India.
The aim is to awaken the spirit of
entrepreneurship - both social and economic -
within India's youth by exposing them to
individuals and institutions that are developing
unique solutions to India's challenges. Through
this national event we have begun to inspire the
youth of India to lead and develop institutions
both nationally and within their communities.
In 1997, on the fiftieth anniversary of India's
independence, Shashank Mani, an IIT alumnus,
organized a train journey across India. The
purpose – to get a sense of how the country had
changed in the past fifty years of independence,
and what needed to be accomplished in the
future. On this twenty-two day journey, in a
specially chartered train, were 200 Indians
from different walks of life – young men and
women whose commitment would help shape
the country's future.
This year was the third ‗yatra‘ in the same very
context and I was among the lucky ones to have
a chance to participate along with 300 other
yatris. This yatra was held from 24 Dec to 12
January and let me say this loud and clear -
What a learning experience it has been!
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We saw some 13 live business models, met 25 And yet so many challenges await us,‘ points of
entrepreneurs and got to know the real pain‘ waiting for entrepreneurs to resolve and
challenges that our country faces and some of create real wealth that contributes to an
the solutions that worked and made money too! emerging super power!

Author:

Harjot singh

Author is an MBA student at

SIBM, Pune.

The E-Way
Business plan is a valuable management tool
that can be utilized in a wide variety of
situations.
In most companies, business plans are used at a
minimum to:
• Set the goals and objectives for the company’s
performance.
• Provide a basis for evaluating and controlling
the company’s performance.
• Communicate a company’s message to middle
managers, outside directors, lenders, and
potential investors.
Setting up Business Plan
The business plan for an early-stage company
is, in many ways, a first attempt at strategic
planning.
An entrepreneur should use a business plan as a
tool for setting the direction of a company over
the next several years, and a plan should set the
action steps and processes to guide the
company through this period. Many
entrepreneurs say that the pressures of the day-
to-day management of a company leave them
little time for planning, and this is unfortunate
because, without it, an owner runs the risks of
proceeding blindly through the rapidly
changing business environment. Of course,
writing a business plan is not a guarantee that
problems will not arise.
But, with a thoroughly thought-out plan, a
business owner can better anticipate a crisis
situation and deal with it up front. Further, a
well-constructed plan can help avoid certain
problems altogether. All in all, business
planning is probably more important to the
survival of a small and growing company than
a larger, more mature one.
Performance Benchmarks
A business plan can also be used to develop
and document milestones along your business‘s
path to success. In the heat of daily operations,
you may find that taking an objective look at
the performance of your business is difficult.
Often, the trees encountered daily obscure your
13
view of the forest in which your company
operates. A business plan can provide you and
your management team with an objective basis
for determining if the business is on track to
meet the goals and objectives you have set.
Steps in Preparing your Business Plan:
Listed below are the steps you should follow in
preparing your business plan, whether you are
writing it for the first time or rewriting it for the
twentieth.
STEP 1—IDENTIFY YOUR OBJECTIVES
Before you can write a successful business plan
you must determine who will read the plan,
what they already know about your company,
what they want to know about your company
and how they intend to use the information they
will find in the plan. The needs of your target
audience must be combined with your
communication objectives—what you want the
reader to know.
Once you have identified and resolved any
conflicts between what your target audience
wants to know and what you want them to
know, you are ready to begin preparing a useful
business plan.
STEP 2—OUTLINE YOUR BUSINESS
PLAN
Once you have identified the objectives for
your business plan, and you know the areas that
you want to emphasize, you should prepare an
outline based on these special requirements.
The outline can be as general or detailed as you
wish, but typically a detailed outline will be
more useful to you while you are writing your
plan.
STEP 3—REVIEW YOUR OUTLINE
Review your outline to identify the areas that,
based on your readers and objectives, should be
presented in detail or summary form in your
business plan. Keep in mind that your business
plan should describe your company at a high
level and that extremely detailed descriptions
are to be avoided in most cases. However, you
must be prepared to provide detailed support

for your statements and assumptions apart from
your business plan if necessary.
STEP 4—WRITE YOUR PLAN
The order in which the specific elements of the
plan are developed will vary depending on the
age of your company and your experience in
preparing business plans.
You will probably find it necessary to research
many areas before you have enough
information to write about them. Most people
begin by collecting historical financial
information about their company and/or
industry, and completing their market research
before beginning to write any part of their plan.
Even though you may do extensive research
before you begin to develop your plan, you
may find that additional research is required
before you complete it. You should take the
time to complete the required research because
many of the assumptions and strategies
described in the plan will be based on the
findings and analysis of your research.
Initial drafts of prospective financial statements
are often prepared next, after the basic financial
and market research and analysis are
completed.
STEP 4—WRITE YOUR PLAN
Author:
Vinay Acharya
MBA-TM, 1st Year
SITM, Pune
14
By preparing these statements at this time, you
will have a good idea which strategies will
work from a financial perspective before
investing many hours in writing a detailed
description of them. As you develop your
prospective statements, be certain that you keep
detailed notes on the assumptions you make to
facilitate preparation of the footnotes that must
accompany the statements, as well as the
composition of other business plan elements.
.
STEP 5—HAVE YOUR PLAN REVIEWED
Once you have completed and reviewed a draft
of your plan, have someone familiar with
business management and the planning process
review it for completeness, objectivity, logic,
presentation, and effectiveness as a
communications tool.
STEP 6—UPDATE YOUR PLAN
Business plans are ―living‖ documents and
must be periodically updated, or they become
useless.
As your environment and your objectives—and
those of your readers—change, update your
plan to reflect these changes.

Waterman of
Rajasthan
Power of One
A good soul will discuss a problem, but
GREAT soul will solve it.
Mr. Rajendra Singh is one such soul that has
changed the face of Bheekampura village of
Alwar. He is a recipient of the 2001 Ramon
Magsaysay Award for community leadership.
He might not be a B-School graduate yet he is
management personified.
He had the ENTREPRENEURIAL ABILITY
to conceptualize an NGO called Tarun Bharat
Sangh. A FIGHTER and SURVIVOR who
has worked against tremendous odds to bring
life back on track.
Making the Impossible Possible
Alwar was declared a ‗Dark Zone‘ and human
survival seemed impossible. Suddenly here
comes a man with a VISION and COURAGE
to take the giant step. His DETERMINATION
and REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS convinced
the villagers to participate in the process of
development. The villagers along with TBS
built traditional earthen dams (Johads) that
facilitated in preserving the natural resources of
15
water through Rain Water Harvesting. He
initiated the first rain water harvesting project
in Kutch and now Gujrat is following his
techniques for Rain water harvesting.
An Organisation with a Mission
Since 1985, Tarun Bhagat Sangh, headed by
Rajendra Singh have been working in the
Alwar district of Rajasthan, focusing on the
revival of Johads, streams and rivers in the
area. They were of the opinion that without
water in region no other significant
development could take place. And with the
successful implementation of the programme
and with the total dedication of all the team
members along with the cooperation of the
villagers, today more than 4,500 working
Johads dot Alwar and surrounding districts.
Tarun Bhagat employs 45 full time and 230
part time workers. Like a true Leader, he leads
from the front by working eight months of the
year on road without seeing the face of his wife
and son.
His LEADERSHIP SKILLS and continuous
DETERMINATION has not only solved the
Arvari water problem but has also lead to the
formation of Arvari Sansad. That further
exemplifies his PLANNING and
ORGANISATIONAL TRAITS. The most
 16

important attribute about his personality is his level but has successfully exploited various
‗NEVER SAY DIE ‗attitude. tools of media to promote its ideology. The
newly constructed website will further
Valuable Promotion propagate his unique concepts about water
Mr. Singh works for a mission and doesn‘t give management in the state. One can log on to
up until it gets accomplished. After his projects www.tarunbharatsangh.org for details and
in Alwar and other parts of Rajasthan he has latest updates on the organisation.
joined the Save River Ganga Campaign. The
World Watch report said that Ganga and other
rivers will run dry for a part or all of the dry
season by the year 2025. Tarun Bharat swiftly
took note of the issue and launched a
Snapshot of the website
nationwide campaign maintain an unaffected
flow of the river Bhagirathi in Uttarakhand.
Under the leadership of Mr.Singh, TBS
mobilized religious leaders, environmentalists,
media persons, political parties, NGOs etc to
highlight the importance of pollution and
encroachment free flow of River Ganga.

Rajendra Singh‘s brainchild Tarun Bharat is A person who has Mahatma Gandhi as his idol,
one organisation that works at the grass root DYNAMISM as his forte and HUMILTY in
his pocket has to be one in a million.

Author:

Era Jain

Author is an MBA-PR student at SIMC, Pune.


Innovative Indian
teens turn cash rich
entrepreneurs
By siliconindia news bureau
Monday,18 January 2010, 06:55 hrs
Bangalore: At a time, when teens are glued to
the computer screens playing games in the
virtual world, there is a new breed of Indian
teens who are busy managing their own
ventures in the real world. For example,
Mohnish Nagpal runs a blog 'Sensonize.com,'
through which he makes money online by
advising people on how to make money online.
Coming back home after college, Nagpal starts
working at 5.30 pm when his target audience in
the U.S. wakes up and logs on to the internet,
reports Economic Times.
One of his posts lists blogging, affiliate
marketing, paid surveys and writing articles for
directories as some of the ways of making
money online. "Very few people know that you
can even earn by tweeting," Nagpal says. With
a steady five-figure income, he doesn't have to
worry about pocket money. "Every time
someone clicks an advert on my blog, I get paid
for it," he adds.
17
This year, Nagpal, who first earned Rs. 5,000
off the internet at 13, started Limespace
Networks, a website-hosting firm that caters to
35 customers. A student of commerce and IT at
MMK College in Mumbai, Nagpal has already
made it to a list of top international bloggers
aged 21 or under on Retireat21.com, a forum
for internet entrepreneurs.
Another teen entrepreneur is Mumbai based 13-
year-old Monik Pamecha, who runs a website
etiole.com, a networking site for 'geeks' called
iluvtech.org and URL shortening service
hop.im. Pamecha's sites are so popular that they
are regularly visited by Public Relation
executives of gadget companies who deliver
their latest products at his doorstep in
anticipation of a review on his five-year-old
blog, Etiole. Pamecha has recruited 26 other
authors from around the globe. Each gets paid
from the advertising income generated by the
website traffic they attract. Apart from reviews,
Pamecha posts technology tips. Now, Pamecha,
a student of Lilavatibai Podar School in
Mumbai, is all set to launch a media-sharing
website also.
Farrhad Acidwalla is the Founder and CEO of
web development and media company
Rockstah Media. "I created an aeromodelling
and aviation website that attracted a lot of
attention and sold it later," says the HR College
student who has several customers including
corporates. "I have just bagged clients from the
education industry in UK," he says. Acidwalla,
who earned his first revenue at the age of 13,
stays up all night to run his business. Today,
the self-taught web-developer works with a
team of web designers, developers, search
engine specialists and social media marketers
to build and promote websites.
TJ Dzine is a firm managed by Tanay Jaipuria,
which provides web design, graphic design and
search engine optimization services. Jaipuria
works for 20 hours a week and occasionally
gives up hanging around with his friends.
Charging between $75 - $100 for a logo and
$250 - $300 for a website, the Mumbai based
lad designed 25 logos and created ten websites
last year. Jaipuria dreams of studying computer

engineering and starting a business venture in
the manner of Silicon Valley start-ups.
After being recognized as the world's youngest
certified professional web-developer at the age
of 14, today at 23, Suhas Gopinath is the
Chairman and CEO of Globals, an IT
consulting firm that specialises in web-related
services. Gopinath began his journey at an
internet cafe in Bangalore where he struck a
deal with the cyber cafe owner and offered to
run the place during lunch if internet use was
made free for him. "With internet charges at
18
Rs. 10 per hour and pocket money of Rs. 25 a
month, I needed to maximise every opportunity
I got," he says.
The first website Gopinath created was called
Coolhindustan. "But, of course, Hindustan is
much cooler today, thanks to the power of the
youth," he says. During his entrepreneurial
journey, Gopinath had to face several obstacles
to gain the confidence of companies, due to his
young age and the lack of academic
qualification.
 19

The B-Plan of the Month

“Best4U”

Authors:

DIGAL TANMOYANANDA
NEHA KUMARI
KOUSER RAOTIWALA
ASHISH HARARKE
PIYUSH RAO
PRAVEEN KUMAR ASATI

(All the authors are 2nd year MBA students at SITM)

 20

 BUSINESS CONCEPT

1. Origin of idea

India, the fastest growing country in terms of new mobile connections, adds near about 14
million users each month. India currently has 14 to 15 mobile service providers and many more
are expected to enter the market. After the launch of Mobile Number Portability and having
these many numbers of players, there will incur an extreme need of information regarding
which mobile connection/plan is best suited, which is the new plan brought up by the service
provider, where to go and pay the bill, where is the store which sell handsets and which is the
new handset in the market.

2. Precisely about product or service

MISSION: ―To become a one stop portal for all telecom queries.‖
The idea behind the Business Plan ―Best4U‖ is all about providing the mobile or landline user
the information regarding the best plan available for him/her in the market which suits him
according to his needs/usage and the other information related to mobile handset and other
services.

This information will be provided to the registered (website) user on his mail ID or on his
mobile according to his choice fortnightly or on monthly basis.

3. The uniqueness and innovativeness of product/service

The web portal will contain other useful information such as

o Rates of different handsets of different companies
o Location and numbers of handset selling stores

o Location and numbers of Service Centres of different mobile companies

o Location and numbers of Billing centres & Customer care centres
o Information regarding different plans and schemes provided by different Cellular
Service Providers

4. Value created by uniqueness of your product/service

The information provided to user will help him decide and choose the best option available in
this highly clustered market. This BPLAN is going to make life easy for cellular users and will
guide him with the correct information.
Target Customer:
Our potential customers will be basically all telecom users. Among which major target segment will be

Youth which is sensitive to price

IT Professionals who have long working hours
Post paid customers
 21

Secondary data miners

Sales Strategy:

Our sales strategy for the ―Best4U‖ will be promoting a web portal which acts as a one point
information provider point.

We will be giving ads on Radio and newspaper as well as banners will be placed at major
places in the city.
We will be distributing pamphlets along with local and national newspapers.
To target customer from working class we will go for online ads.
We will be sending promotional messages on mobiles.
Mails will be sending to the selective number of customers.

Entry Strategy:
The time when Mobile Number Portability will be launched and 3G services will be in demand. Entry
of New Telecom Service providers into the Indian Market. This will be the time when the need of
information will be most and this will be the time for us to start our business.

Growth Strategy:

Initially we are planning to start our business with the information of Pune city and after one year we
will have information of Bangalore, Indore and Chandigarh. Within a span of 3 years we would like to
cover Metros. These cities have huge number of youth crowd and corporate along with high
teledensity which is our idea of target.

Target Market:
As on 30, November 09 India has 543.42 million Subscriber base (wireless + wire line). India adds
near about 14 million users each month. As on 30, September2009

Urban teledensity: 101.38%

Rural teledensity: 18.97%
Urban India accounts for close to 70% of India‘s 543.2 million cellular users (As on 30, November
09). Near about 80mn active online users out of total 100mn internet users as on December09. Our
target market is

Youth which is sensitive to price

IT Professionals who have long working hours
Post paid customers
Secondary data miners

Competitors:

Mobile stores who has their own online sites

Cellular service providers web portal
Sites of handset providers
 22

Competitive Advantage:

Any of the stores or service provider‘s web portals currently present does not provide comparative
information. Our USP is customized information to individuals which will suggest him the best
available plan and the comparison along with other asked information. With the coming of MNP and
3G service and in some time when the NGN services will start, there will be number of new plans and
VAS available and the comparative information about it will be in demand which will give a great
advantage to our business.

Entry & Exit Barriers:

There is no entry barrier as the market is open and anyone can collect the information and can design
the solution. Currently in cities like Pune and Bangalore we don‘t have any such service provider.

Exit from the market is also easy as after a period of a year or two we will have sufficient information
collected and data and experience available, which can be used to diversify the business or to sell it in
at a better price.

Business Plan Initiation:

B Plan ―Best4U‖ is a one stop portal for every information related to mobile like tariff comparison of
different operators, be it handset cost and its comparison, customer support for all its queries and
complaints and other related information which would be provided through SMS and email.
To start with the basic requirement is to have SERVERS for data storage, mail and SMS servers for
push and pull SMS.

Revenue Model:
Our revenue model is fairly simple. We would be getting revenue from the advertisements and
Promotional messages which would be a part of information message. Every information would be
given in terms of either:

SMS: The SMS would have few characters dedicated for Advertisements which would be a
source of revenue.
Email: Every email will have promotional Advertisements embedded in the mail.
Other major source of revenue will be the % of charge collected by handset seller on the sale to
a customer informed by our portal.

Sensitivity Drivers:
Our model is sensitive to:

System security for confidential customer data

Threats from similar information providers
Threats from operator themselves who can send promotional SMS‘s.
Drivers of revenue:
I. Number of retailers associating with our portal
II. Number of subscribers registering on the web portal
III. advertisements on the portal
 23

What an idea!
Cell Phone as tool to detect counterfeit currency

The issue of counterfeit currency has been bothering the

Indian government in recent years as it not only affects
the business transactions but also affects day-to-day
transactions at the consumer level. A recent RBI survey
estimates Rs 169,000 crore worth ofcounterfeit
currency floating in the market. While machines are
available now in market to identify suchcounterfeit
currency, the availability of such machines is restricted to
banks and big industrial houses. The consumer has no
access to such mechanisms.

Neha N of Vidya Vikas Institute of Engineering &

Technology, Mysore has precisely addressed this issue with
her innovative and prize winning solution to identify counterfeit currency using cellphone.
The solution designed by Neha makes use of UV-visible and an optical near infrared point light
sources, low power sensor chip, and the existing cell phone processor for detecting and notifying the
user about counterfeit currency. This scheme makes cell phone, when in detection mode, an
intelligent sensor. It also utilizes other architectural features of cell phone such as battery, display,
and audio unit for the cited purpose.
The user is notified via phone display unit as well as the speaker. The scheme does not disturb any
of the normal cell phone applications and adapts to the optimized energy saving algorithms such as
adaptive sampling and lossless data compression. Such high adaptability makes the scheme consume
negligible power from the phone battery for processing sensor signals.
The concepts of Image Processing, Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition are used for checking
genuineness of currency as per RBI standards.
Moreover, since the proposed scheme works on phone battery and uses low power consumption
techniques for processing, approximately 45% of energy can be saved when compared with the
currently available stand alone counterfeit detection units which mostly work on AC supply.
Neha‘s innovation came into light through the Innovation Challenge program organized by
Schneider Electric India. Neha‘s whitepaper on ―Cell Phone based intelligent counterfeit teller‖ won
the first prize among 150 teams who had participated in the contest. The participants were evaluated
on the basis of quality of innovation, technical feasibility of solution, alignment to the contest theme
and the proof of concept given.

Source:
http://www.telecomtiger.com/fullstory.aspx?passfrom=topstory&storyid=8100&section=S176
 24

All are invited!

Team E-Spire invites article from B Schools all across India. We are looking for
original articles related to entrepreneurship. Students can also contribute puzzles and
jokes related to entrepreneurship. References should be cited wherever necessary.

Instructions:

 Please send your articles before 10th February 2010 to espire.sitm@gmail.com.

 Do mention your name, institute name and batch with your article along with
photo.
 Format: Font:- Times New Roman, Size:- 12, Length <= 5 Pages in word
doc/docx.
 Please DO NOT send PDF files and kindly stick to the format.
 Number of authors 2 at max.

SUBSCRIBE!!
Get YOUR OWN COPY DELIVERED TO INBOX
Drop a mail at sitm.espire@gmail.com

Thanks,

Team E-Spire:

 Siddhant Jain
 Kaushal Chhaya
 Hemant Gavali
 Navsangeet Kaur
 Manisha Panda
 Vinay Acharya
 Neha Isawe
 Ayushi Patni
 Devika Atkare