Ashoka University

My Tryst with Entrepreneurship at Ashoka – Journey to Being EBITDA (Experience-Based Insight, Technical Development, and Aptitude) Positive

Prakhar shares his journey with Entrepreneurship at Ashoka through refashioned business terminologies learned in his classes

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I would like to share my entrepreneurial journey by viewing myself as a business. Just as any startup or business progresses through various phases of growth, I have experienced similar stages. By borrowing and creatively bending the terms and abbreviations I learned in my entrepreneurship classes, I would like to map out my personal growth and development within the entrepreneurship department.

Here’s my story in the form of a business journey. In the ideation phase, I aimed to establish a place where I could gain a solid TAM (Talent, Aptitude, and Momentum). Diving across majors and minors, I encountered the entrepreneurship department. I explored the faculty, events, clubs, startup conventions, competitions, and more, and saw the potential of undertaking several positive NPV (Nurturing Powerful Vision) projects.

The first project I undertook was at Shark Tank Ashoka, where I launched Karigari. The aura developed made my team and me pull all-nighters for research and crafting our pitch deck. Winning a special mention marked the beginning of our future CAGR (Curiosity Augmented Growth and Resilience).

We followed up on the advice of judges and the department and advanced our research by visiting Sunder Nagri, meeting handloom workers, and hunting for plastic supplies in Sadar Bazar and Alipur. After 10 hours of auto rides, we found the elements of our supply chain. Conducting five rounds of waste plastic sheet iterations and seeking guidance for corporate gifting from the center, we perfected the material for tote bags, pouches, and more. Today, the startup is ranked as one of the top 20 early-stage projects in India, marking the start of our ARR (Aptitude and Resoluteness based Rewards).

Using the B2C (Brain 2 Conquer) strategy, I invested time in a global capital market course taught at the Centre for Entrepreneurship in collaboration with Deutsche Bank and earned ROE (Return on Education) as the FRM (Financial Risk Manager) Level 1 certification. The main GTM (Gaining Talent and Maturity) strategy I followed was to leverage industry visits conducted by the department. I visited Vibrant Gujarat, Advantage Vidarbha, Startup Maha Kumbh, and Techsparks, gaining an ROE (Return on Experience) in the form of increased knowledge and awareness about the industry.

The focus was not just to make the business profitable but also to reduce the CAC (Cost of Acting on Creativity) for new startup ideas on campus. I started the pre-incubation program that helps students convert ideas into MVPs in a semester by leveraging the resources of the department. The program conducted several information sessions, market visits, and expert talks to help students break through mental blocks and build their MVPs (Minimum Viable Product). Several startups like Lovsy, Enthusiasts, and Melbakes are emerging from the program.

During the summer, the department motivated me to take a master’s level finance course—Advanced Corporate Finance—at the London School of Economics, where I ranked in the top 10. This achievement gave me the confidence and belief in myself to invest in any new PPE (Pioneering Project Endeavors) and achieve 100% capacity utilization.

As a person keen to explore many things, I took Business Analysis and Strategy, which was a life-changing course for me. The biggest key takeaway I got from my instructor, Mr. Sanjay Kukreja (Partner & CIO, ChrysCapital), is that “The truth lies in the fundamentals,” which instilled in me a habit of going back to the fundamentals and questioning the right things, giving me my biggest MOAT (Mindful, Original, Actionable Thoughts). The end-of-semester presentation took place at the Indian Habitat Center, which is one of the most profound experiences of Ashoka. We were grilled with questions by Vineet Nayyar (Former CEO, Tech Mahindra), sharpening my MOAT.

The most rewarding experience of my undergraduate journey was being a Teaching Assistant for Deepali Singh (Founder, The WallstreetWiz). Her course reduced COGS (Cost of Gauging Skills) in the domain of finance, and a subsequent internship with her at her firm gave the ROI (Return on Internship) of mastering DCF, Valuations, M&A, Error Checking, and many more skills! The net result of hard work, conducting discussion sessions, and acting as a Teaching Assistant with Rahul Bhasin (Founder, Baring Private Equity Partners India) for his course Fundamentals of Investing provided a solid return of strong business acumen, a fundamental view of stock markets as businesses, and viewing the markets with a different lens. The journey has yielded me an EBITDA (Experience-Based Insight, Technical Development, and Aptitude) return in the form of an opportunity to be an analyst intern at Baring Private Equity Partners for the summer as well as a semester abroad at Cornell University.