Rejecting Wall Street, graduates turn to entrepreneurship

Kimball Thomas and Davis Smith, co-founders of the e-commerce site Baby.com.br, had just six hours in Brazil to pitch to prospective investors and recruit a promising executive for the chief operating officer’s role.
With little time left after a four-hour meeting with venture capital firm Monashees Capital, the prospective candidate, In Hsieh, agreed to drive the entrepreneurs back to the airport for his interview, braving the city’s notoriously congested roads as he answered their questions.
Thomas and Smith, who are cousins, made their evening flight, and Smith got home in time for his final exam at his business school (B-school).
“Between my red-eye flights, I didn’t have time to study,” Smith said. “But I realized, the whole reason I went back to school was to build a business like this.”
Smith, who attends the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas, of Harvard Business School (HBS), are part of a growing number of B-school students rejecting traditional postgraduate paths such as investment banking, hedge funds and consulting. It’s a trend that is accelerating in the wake of the financial crisis as Wall Street loses its lustre and Silicon Valley shines with a new crop of multibillion-dollar start-ups.
At Harvard, some of Thomas’ classmates are applying their entrepreneurial ambitions to technology ventures. Kevin Nazemi, a former Microsoft Corp. product manager, started Done, a personal productivity service, last year. Daniel Gulati, a student who helped Thomas draft his early investor presentations, founded retail site Fashionstake.com with a fellow classmate, Vivian Weng. Graduates from the class of 2010 started 30-40 businesses last year, a 50% increase from the previous year, said William A. Sahlman, a professor of entrepreneurship at HBS.
The level of entrepreneurship activity here, and I presume at other schools, is up dramatically over the last two years,” said Sahlman.

Baby.com.br is the second start-up for Thomas, 31, and Smith, 32. In 2004, the students started PoolTables.com with around $20,000 (around Rs. 9 lakh today) scraped together from friends and family. The venture—which taught them the basics, such as how to coordinate with vendors in China and how to run an e-commerce site—was profitable in its first year. Now, the two are tackling a broader, if more complicated, market.Smith got the idea for Baby.com.br after trying to find diapers for his son, Jack, during a family trip to Rio de Janeiro last year. He had to visit three stores to find a package of Pampers in the right size.
Struck by the lack of high-quality baby care goods, Thomas saw an opportunity in Brazil’s fast growing market, where more than three million babies are born every year, according to World Bank data.
The start-up follows a similar strategy to Quidsi, the owner of Diapers.com. That site, also co-founded by a Wharton graduate, has attracted more than one million parents in the US with free shipping on goods for their children. E-commerce giant Amazon.com snapped up Quidsi this year for $545 million.
“We actually see a lot more potential for e-commerce in Brazil,” said Thomas, Baby.com.br’s chief executive. “E-commerce there is so much more nascent.”
Even so, they face more challenges than with their previous site, including a different regulatory and tax regime than in the US. In Brazil, the payment processing is also more fragmented. The plan is to start the service in July, but Thomas said they may have to push it back.
Investors, inside the school and out, have taken notice. In late April, Baby.com.br was named one of the top three winners for Harvard’s annual “Business Plan Contest”, which came with a $25,000 cash prize. The award is on top of the $3 million that Thomas and Smith raised in February. That fund-raising effort, which valued the company at $5.6 million, included several well-known venture capitalists, including Monashees Capital and Ron Conway of SV Angel, who has stakes in Twitter and Zynga.
“Harvard carries some distinction; you can catch some people’s eyes,” said Thomas, referring to prospective investors. “On the margin, if they can, they get back to you.”
The contest is part of a broader effort by the school to foster innovation. Last year, budding entrepreneurs at Harvard formed the Startup Tribe, a student group. The organization, which has more than 150 members, persuaded Harvard to start the Minimum Viable Product Fund, a $50,000 fund for new start-ups. The programme distributes awards of roughly $5,000 apiece to promising teams, including the nine winners announced in March.
“We’re a scrappy, adaptive community” said Andrew Rosenthal, a member of the Startup Tribe. The group has been gaining traction, because of a confluence of factors. “We have a new dean, an active network of recent graduates who are providing mentorship, and there’s a strong demand for a student-run community,” he said.
The school is also planning to open in the fall the Harvard Innovation Lab, a student centre for start-ups, where founders can work with peers and Harvard’s entrepreneurs-in-residence.
Of course, a B-school can also be a significant hurdle for passionate founders. Thomas admits that his grades probably suffered last semester, as he struggled to juggle his classes with investor and client meetings in Brazil, San Francisco and New York.
For the moment, he’s catching his breath. Thomas, who is graduating this month, finished school on Friday. “I’m quite relieved that classes are over,” he said. “I have a trip to Brazil next week.”

-2011/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Business lessons for young entrepreneurs by a young entrepreneur

Before you begin your new and exciting venture into the business world, take time out to enjoy what you have already accomplished. Realize that what you are doing may not become a total success in the end and what you are more importantly gaining is business experience. Take a good look at the other young people you come in contact with everyday and understand the strides you have taken to set yourself apart from those around you and the benefits these efforts will earn you. Just by trying you have become an "overachiever" in your peer group.

As a young entrepreneur, there are certain business related and personal related obstacles you will have to endure in order to become successful. Some factors are real, such as where you will get your initial funding and where you will find time to manage your business, family, and school responsibilities all at once. Other factors, as we will discuss, are nothing more than self-inflicted obstacles such as worrying about your age or experience level when dealing with a possible client. These are nothing more than mental games you will play with yourself that will hinder your performance and success. As a young entrepreneur, you must overcome in order to (over)achieve.

In your first attempt at building a successful business you will undoubtedly come across times of trouble. To preempt feelings of failure during these inevitable situations, begin by taking a walk around the local mall. There you will find many of your peers working in jobs that they do not enjoy. These jobs will never serve a purpose in their lives other than paying for their current expenses. At the mall you will also find others, much older than you, working in dead-end jobs in which they have no control over their future or their success. They wake up, go to work, come home, go to sleep and start over again in the morning. You, however, are involved in a dynamic business experience that will help you throughout your life. Your age should never concern you. It should be used to your advantage rather than becoming a detriment to your success.

It is natural for young entrepreneurs to feel insecure about their age when dealing with people that are older. Not only does this type of thinking get you nowhere, it can drive your client prospects to your competition.

Although it may be a natural reaction to defend your age while speaking with clients or prospects, you must fight the urge. You will be defending a position that was never an issue with your client. By bringing up your own insecurities, you may plant that concern in the head of the person you are dealing with. People are worried about whether your service is going to help them or not, not about who is behind it. If you let this type of thinking go on, you will blame any type of failure on your age and inexperience instead of focusing on how to get better. This is a fatal business flaw. Youth should be a business asset rather than a liability.

Understand that your youth enables you to do many things in business and take risks that older people in the same position could not. You are young, without a wife and three kids, unlike your competition. You can take chances and not have to worry about feeding your children every day. Your youth grants you energy and a sharp mind. Use these factors to separate yourself from older competitors. You should view yourself as a "young gun" of business and take things head on, because if your business flops, so what? You can always go back to McDonald’s, but you can never regain your youth. If you need steady income while your business is still developing, use your part time job to your advantage. It could be the only source of capital you have at first. Once again, if either your job or your new business doesn’t work out, so be it, you can always make up for it in the future and you’ll be wiser as well.

It is prudent to take a step back and evaluate your position before embarking on a business venture. Begin to grow your funds in the bank while your business is still young. As you grow and expand the money can be used and replaced. Also be sure to save as much of your paycheck as you can while being able to pay your everyday expenses. As your business grows and you are able to support yourself, you should then focus your attention fully on developing your business.

School and schoolwork are other obstacles that are unique to younger entrepreneurs. It is important to set your priorities straight. No matter how successful your business is becoming or how much your business needs to be worked on, you must keep your schoolwork as your top priority. It is easy to ignore assignments and lose focus in school because of the million dollar ideas floating around in your head. Be sure to understand that school is what will help you later in life as you continue your business career. Set homework time aside every day and keep your grades in order. No one wants to deal with a businessperson who has failed out of high school.

As you begin your venture, know that you have already succeeded. It is the entrepreneurial spirit and will that will help you throughout your life. Even if your business is unable to stay afloat, know that you gained more business experience than your colleagues have in the classroom alone. As long as you use your youth to your advantage, stay aggressive and keep thinking positively, you will have a successful run. Never stop promoting yourself and your business and never be afraid of success! Good luck!

Entrepreneurship

Towards Entrepreneurship : Becoming an entrepreneur is a real challenge. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication and focus. Before taking the plunge into entrepreneurship you have to make sure you are ready. You may be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Even as Entrepreneurship is comparatively a new trend for our society, many have tried; many are becoming successful while others give up before attaining success. Due to its involvement of high risk, entrepreneurship is often discouraged by many.

To become an entrepreneur you need to possess the three P’s… a clear and positive Perception of yourself and your offering, Passion for what you do and the difference you can make, and Perseverance for the time it takes to build your business (which our people specially lack in). They are the essential ingredients for success. One piece of advice to becoming an entrepreneur is to never stop reading. Whatever industry you are in you need to constantly be on top of what is happening. Staying ahead of the curve is about having a massive pipeline of information, organizing it and making decisions to move faster than your competition. Your entrepreneurial instincts are fueled by information. The fact that you are reading this article is your one step towards Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs—the fastest growing area of our economy; what makes these strange people, risk takers and wealth generators tick? Why do entrepreneurs take risks, endure pain, fatigue, and embarrassment? What makes them run? Is it money, fame, power or fun?

None of the above ! Entrepreneurs might want and enjoy those rewards but what drives them and what distinguishes them from an overachieving employee or salesperson is the desire to create. That’s it. They have a passion to create and innovate. Are you an entrepreneur? Do you pass the test? Many overachievers are not entrepreneurs. Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, JRD Tata and GD Birla were entrepreneurs so are Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Ambanis, Bajajs, Ashok Soota Narayanan Murthy, Sunil Mittal and Subroto Bagchi. They had dreams to create new horizons for humanity. A vision, inspiration and most importantly the belief that, “I can do that”, is the defining image of an entrepreneur. Against all odds, they trusted on themselves. Instead of depending on others, they have faith and confidence on their own, stood on their own feet and demonstrate Self Reliance sending out the message that Self Reliance is manifested in Entrepreneurship. “There is a cost of standing on your feet, and there is a cost of living on your knees. Guess which one is more expensive.” Decide accordingly today, for your future. My vision for our people is that “all the youth will find something to do in life. They will practice entrepreneurship in whatever field they choose to venture and through it, will demonstrate Self Reliance.” We have started . . . scantily, . . . we have started drinking our own juice and watching our own videos.

But, ten years . . . ,  okay twenty years from now on, we need to see our people – eating biscuits from our own factories, wearing jackets from our own cloth-house, building materials from our own industries, driving cars of our own made, taking medicines from our pharmaceutics, . . . . using everything in our own brand. We need to see more Tatas, more Ambanis, more and more Bill Gates. So that we will not only stand on our own feet, but also be brave enough to sponsor more projects ourselves and help those who are in need.

-THE SANGAI EXPRESS