Aakash 7.0 - the entrepreneurial meet

Aakash 7.0 – Challenges in an e-commerce start-up

“Give me whereon to stand and I shall move the Earth” - Archimedes

‘AAKASH 7.0’, the entrepreneurship meet, started on this note on Saturday, 29^th of August, 2015, with a confluence of zealous entrepreneurs passionately driven towards their start-up dreams.

Aakash was started by the Consulting and Entrepreneurship club, IIM Raipur in 2013 with the vision to help start-ups, entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs to address the challenges in start-up businesses such as funding, resource allocation, hiring and planning as well as exploring business opportunities and building an entrepreneurial Eco-system in Raipur. And has already grown manifolds. The theme 7.0 was ‘Challenges in an e-commerce start-up’.

The meet saw participation from founders and promoters of varied start-ups, varied around not just the business models but also in terms of ideas and technology. The keynote speakers for the event were Mr. Aadesh Jain, founder 24*7 Health Care Pvt. Ltd, Mr. Prosenjit Bhattacharya, social media handler for konsole with 15 years of experience in mentoring and training, Mr. Shantanu Modak, Director – Bookshelf Academy Pvt. Ltd, Mr. Siddharth, promoter of the waterless car washing service washmycar.co.in, Mr. Mahendra Kurry, the brain behind noJhanJhat.com, a food delivery service, and Mr. Suyash, promoter for Jugaad.in.

The meet saw a healthy discussion between the entrepreneurs and the students from the institute, and revolved around the four key challenges faced by a start-up – that of integrating, funding, answering the going concern and tackling attrition. The entailing discussion was about the changing concept of pre-sales and post–sales in the digital era.

Mr. Shantanu tried to clear the fog over the confusion between an established company and a start-up. Mr. Siddharth spoke about the importance of determining the pain points of the market and offering a highly targeted product. The importance of technology in offering a highly competitive service was emphasized and established in great detail. While Mr. Suyash touched upon the operational challenges faced by an e-commerce start-up, Mr. Aadesh Jain recounted the funding struggles faced by many a start-up. While all these portrayed the positives of the digital world, Mr. Prosenjit Bhattacharya introduced a new dimension to the discussion by talking about the ill-effects of Facebook viralism.

The discussion ended on a high for both the students and the entrepreneurs with the students learning the inner mechanisms, hurdles and subsequent bottlenecks for an e-commerce start-up. The speakers, in the process of the discussion, gained newer perspectives from the other visiting entrepreneurs and students.

The meet was followed by an informal yet fruitful interaction between the entrepreneurs and the students with the former sharing their unique business vision with the budding entrepreneurs thus helping reduce the apprehensions of the young future entrepreneurs.