Amongst management aspirants who enroll with B Schools are those who harbor entrepreneurial dreams. Others realize theirs through the course of their programs. On 18th Dec, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore facilitated a session with Mr. Devesh Chawla, Founder and CEO of Chatur Ideas that offered students an insight on vital attributes for entrepreneurs. ‘The Importance of Communication in an Entrepreneur’s Life and at Workplace’ was the theme of the interactive session that offered crucial takeaways to future managers and entrepreneurs in the audience.
Chatur Ideas is a startup enabling platform for over 700 startups and 1500 investors. It helps startups get funding, mentoring and 360-degree execution support. This year it won the “Industry Excellence Award for being the leading Startup Enabler Platform” at the International BRICS Conclave for Startups and MSMEs. Mr. Chawla, who is at the helm of the company started the session by asking students why they wanted to be entrepreneurs. It was an interactive opening to what turned out to be an engrossing session.

Mr. Chawla then laid out the differences between Managers and Entrepreneurs. He asserted that both had an important role to play in business but the approach would have to be very different. According to him, “An entrepreneur begins with the ideas of the business from its inception and its potential for growth in the long run. A business manager is focused on engendering growth based on available resources. The manager must get employees to perform at optimal levels. So to be a good manager, one has to be a good entrepreneur.”

To highlight the importance of communication for entrepreneurs and challenges they face for the Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore students, Mr. Chawla narrated the anecdote of a conversation with Mr. Rohit Bansal, Co-founder and COO Snapdeal. The head honcho of the ecommerce site believed that nearly 85% of aspirants drop the idea of turning entrepreneurs when they learn about the hardships and challenges faced along the way. Mr. Chawla described some of the challenges as, “Sacrificing security and stability, a regular schedule, and control, which is something all entrepreneurs need to do.”

Mr. Chawla also gave the example of WhatsApp Founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, who were turned down for a job with Facebook in 2009. Within a few years they made Whatsapp a huge success and it was bought by Facebook for a whopping $19 billion. He ended the session with a video on the life of Mr. Jignesh Shah, Founder of FT Group, who revolutionized commodity exchanges in India and abroad. It stressed on the importance of courage, positive attitude and other crucial attributes for entrepreneurs while inspiring the students as well.