According to Peter Drucker, “Entrepreneurship is a practice rather than a science or art”. He emphasized Entrepreneurship requires practical knowledge and skills that are developed through experience and application.Entrepreneurship education is designed to develop an individual’s potential and skills for starting a business venture. Entrepreneurship Courses are among the fastest growing in colleges today – being taught as a subject / specialization in business schools, engineering & agricultural colleges, biotech and many institutions.
Typically, courses cover management principles and practices, marketing strategies, finance and accounting basics, legal considerations, problem-solving techniques, team-building skills, and customer service approaches. These programs give the participants the essential knowledge and access to resources before launching their venture into the marketplace.
However, with changing times, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship studies, programmes have evolved from the traditional approach of doing business to a whole new world of opportunities, collaborations, tech interventions and success stories. Incubation centres, venture capitalists funding, angel investors, accelerator programmes etc. are giving the new age business ideas a boost in all possible ways to establish and market the products or services and most importantly making entrepreneurship ventures a culture in India.
We spoke with Prominent Scholar, Dean Academics of XLRI, Prof. (Dr.) Rajeev Roy to gather some insights and his thoughts on the success stories of Entrepreneurship Program in India on the whole and XLRI in particular, where they run PGDM – IEV (Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Venture), highlighting upon the Accelerator Programs and Start Up Incubators in India.
On B Schools offering Entrepreneurship Programmes in India
XLRI Summer Internship batch 2023-25: Highest stipend Rs. 7 Lakh
In India about 20 colleges run a full-time entrepreneurship programme. The most popular of these is the full time 2-year PGDM / MBA in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Venture Creation. These programs are to train aspiring entrepreneurs and give them a MBA degree as well.
Some of the prominent institutions to run these programmes include Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, IIM, Lucknow, IIT Jodhpur, XLRI among others. Find Top 10 listed in Campusutra.
Mostly these colleges have about 30 odd seats and they may struggle to fill up even those seats. Some of the better colleges get upwards of a few hundred applicants.
Top 10 B Schools Offering Entrepreneurship Management Programs in India
The IEV program run by XLRI got about 600 applicants in 2022, followed by a spurt of applications to 13,000 in the next year, and this year it is already over 21,000 and counting. This makes it probably the most applications for any entrepreneurship cohort in the world. While the applications for entrepreneurship programs in Babson, ESADE, Stanford and others do not cross even 1000, it is the accelerator programs of Techstars, Sequoia and others which get applications in thousands.
Y-combinator getting the maximum at around 20,000 applicants per cohort.
With growing numbers of Accelerators and Incubators what has been the impact in a real sense ?
The predominant manner in which incubation is carried out in the US and the legacy of how it has been carried out in the Anglo-Saxon world has been through incubators. And these incubators have been largely based out of educational institutions. If you go back to the US, you look at the leading colleges in the world, other than those who very decidedly have a lot of physical innovations in the arena of science coming through, others are not looking at incubation as a serious way of engaging with the entrepreneurial world. Stanford University, for example, does not have its own incubator.
In India if you look at the leading startups in the country, let’s say, a good example would be Zomato, an IIT Delhi student, but he did not go into the incubator at IIT Delhi. He decided to go work somewhere and then he started his own enterprise. It was independent of all incubators. If you look at Ola, in fact, he was a student when he started it off. But still he did not go into the IIT Mumbai incubator. He decided to do it on his own outside the incubator. In fact, the first incubator, the first unicorn we had out of the incubation system was as late as just a few years ago. And by the time we already had about 80 unicorns, none of them had gone through the incubator route.
As a way going forward. Incubator and accelerator programs are now far more available, and have far more traction. Incubator and Accelerator programs are basically short-term programs of a 3-6 months period with an intervention with a startup.
The kind of Program which is followed in XLRI and some other institutions in India is to take a long-measured look at entrepreneurship, overcoming the shortcomings of short tenured Incubation investing in the improvements that one might need and helping them to start off in a supervised manner through a structured Entrepreneurship Development Program.
So we have taken that route over here. We have not looked at incubation. We have looked at entrepreneurship development.
What kind of skill sets, mind-set, competence and metrics is looked for in an ideal entrepreneurial candidature ?
What is looked for is someone with a high level of competence on those factors which helps in shaping the entrepreneurial mind-set. We are looking at those people who have decided that they want to become entrepreneurs, but want to take a long measured look at entrepreneurship. They are willing to invest one year of their life in overcoming the shortcomings that they might have, in investing it in the improvements they might need to make. And then one year we are getting them to do this, we are getting them to start off in a supervised manner. We believe that in a short time frame, we may not be able to offer enough value.
For a start up everything needs to be celebrated, but as a society we seem to be into celebrating fundraising a little bit more than successes. So here we don’t look at fundraising as a metric that we intend to report as well. For us, the metric over here is the traction they have, is the employment they generate, is the profits they can engineer. That is what we are looking at as the metrics. And that is the kind of entrepreneur we are setting up over here. Start up a business, do it well, scale and funding if you need it will come your way.
That is what we are looking at as the metrics. And that is the kind of entrepreneur we are setting up over here. Start up a business, do it well, scale and funding if you need it will come your way.
To cite an example, people graduating from a Gujarati medium Institution for their entire lives but might have been brilliant in business from a very young age wanting to do something differently are the ones welcomed in this program.
While other Entrepreneurship programmes are struggling to have 30 odd numbers in the class what might have led XLRI IEV to increase seats to 120
Built from first principles, XLRI IEV concentrates on what is important for entrepreneurs to learn. It is not a rejig of a traditional MBA – the program has been redesigned by looking into what knowledge is necessary for entrepreneurs. A design which is by entrepreneurs and for entrepreneurs. So the course design as well as the conduct is largely by entrepreneurs.
Doing it – The first year of the course is largely classroom training and workshops, but the second year is all about implementing your business idea and actually starting a business. Added to the mix are multiple live projects, internships, workshops, mentoring and other such activities that meaningfully drive the students towards their venture. Students also get opportunities to present their ventures in front of a panel of Angel Investors.
I think the first year we took 40, we actually took 43 students. Three students were found not to be in the entrepreneurial mind set and who may be more comfortable going into a job. So they were told that you are going to thrive in a traditional setting not in an entrepreneurial setting. Out of the 40 who were left, there is one who is going to become a researcher in entrepreneurship. He has figured out that that is his calling in life. The other 39 are very sure that they want to start their own enterprises. Some of them are not yet sure about the idea they want to go ahead with. So they are teaming up with the other classmates who are more sure of the idea and becoming co-founders over there and taking those enterprises forward. Of which 13 of the enterprises now have registered themselves, have got a prototype and many of them have gone to the market and actually got some traction as well. We had a demo day. We called some of the leading angels in the country. We had Indian Angel Network, we had Mumbai Angels, we had Chandigarh Angels, we had IPV and it was very clear to them that the 13 people who are presenting here are not here because they were just seeking money, instead they were also seeking feedback and validation. You give them the feedback of what they are doing well and what they can do well going forward. Money is something that will come later.
We are not focused on the money aspect of it right now. Early stages, let it be bootstrapped. That’s what we are looking at.
How do the aspirants interested to enroll for the Program proceed ? What is the selection procedure ?
The XLRI PGDM-IEV Program, a two-year full time AICTE approved course in entrepreneurship which offers structured long-term support for aspiring entrepreneurs by combining management education with incubation / acceleration was started in the year 2022 and had about 600 applicants in year 1 itself. Year 2 saw a spurt of applications to 13,000 and this year till now it is already over 21,000.
Candidates have to undergo a meticulously framed “Selection Process”.
- Must undertake either the CAT/ XAT / GMAT Entrance exam or XEAT – Xavier Entrepreneurship Aptitude Test.
- Candidates need to submit a SOP (Statement of Purpose) – highlighting ‘Why do you want to start off your own business? What is it that sets you apart as an entrepreneur?
- There is a final stage which is an interview.
We call a lot of people for interviews much more than are called for a normal BM program because we understand there are more opportunities here to make type A and type B errors. So we call a large group and we shortlist on the basis of what they are telling us in terms of what they expect from the course and then of course our expectations from them in terms of them being able to start an enterprise.
Is there a cut-off? It is natural that someone with an entrepreneurial mind set may not have the time or interest in sitting for CAT / XAT who may however fulfill the eligibility criteria
There are a lot of people, who come from outside this route, who were not thinking about doing an MBA at all and have decided now because there is an entrepreneurship program. For them, we have something which we call the Entrepreneurship Aptitude Test. XEAT is what we call it, the Xavier Entrepreneurship Aptitude Test. We ask for a SOP. Why do you want to start off your own business? What is it that sets you apart as an entrepreneur? Variations of this question. We are very clear about what question we give them enough time to answer it. Based on the answers they have had, we take that into account. We take that into account what has been their work experience. If some of them have had experience in an entrepreneurial firm, many of our founders have actually worked with Zomato for a while or worked with Go-Check for a while and then they have come in over here.
So we need to have a cut-off and that’s a regulatory requirement for us as well. But we really don’t care if there is a guy who is sitting in class who cannot speak English to save his life. Last year it was around 65, this year it might be a little bit more. But there might be a lot of people who are above the cut-off and who won’t make it because the SOPs were not up to the mark. We have had people who are 97% who have not been called for.
So what happens is, if somebody is brilliant in maths and cannot speak English to save his life, we are fine with that person or vice versa. We need to have a high level of competence on some factors that they are showing over here.
While selecting the right fit for the program, what XLRI values most is someone who has been an entrepreneur and has decided that this has not worked out for them and is now looking for a re-take. So, a failed entrepreneur is on the top of the pie.
We try to maintain a balance. So if you look at a normal classroom, I think one third would be people who have had an entrepreneurial experience, one third would be people who have had work experience and another one third would be people who are freshers. A very important factor is, I keep on telling the students as well, the single biggest strength of the program is that cohort themselves as they become support for each other. They find somebody who is good at tech, they recommend it to the others. They find somebody who is good at accounting, they found a good service provider, so recommend that to the others.
The students are exposed to other entrepreneurs and get a reality check on what it is to start and operate a business. It is a very open system where our students go, attend events nationally. We hold a lot of events at our campus itself where the ecosystem comes into the campus itself. A focus on out of the class activities – the participants attend events by TIE, NASSCOM, Head start and other ecosystem partners.
