Day 7: An interaction with our Alums

Dressed up in formals, we all arrived at the classroom to listen to three of our Alumni. Our first interaction was with Mr. Nikhil Kulkarni, the innovator of India’s first online business gaming challenge  Mastishk , which is now also  NITIE’s one of the most acclaimed events (http://mastishk.nitie.net/) . Nikhil who is presently working with KPMG in Banking and Financial Services domain is a very simple personality to look at yet his ideas are so powerful that it made most of us speechless.

He started the discussion asking us how many of us want to become entrepreneurs, many of us raised hands, then he tried drilling into their reasons for this choice and figured that except a few most of us had exactly zero idea what exactly it is to be an entrepreneur, we were seeing being entrepreneur as an exit option from our mundane job lives. Most of us confused between being independent with taking zero liability. He tried to give us a brief understanding of what exactly it is to be an entrepreneur, quoting some examples he inferred that we never noticed any failed startup because their stories goes unsung, and the very few which succeed catch the limelight, and reading their stories we envisage ourselves as future billionaires without peeping into the ground realities.

“A startup demands extreme patience and passion and if you are ready for both it is THE thing for you” said Nikhil, but if you are confused even to the extent of one percent  don’t go.

The feeling of a job creator comes with its own terms and conditions. Comparing doing a job and being an entrepreneur he identified that neither the efforts nor the responsibilities are less anywhere, in job you have an advantage of switching whenever you want, in startup you are your own boss doesn’t mean that you are not answerable to anyone, your stakeholders , your customers are all your liability.

While he was just to start telling his experiences about Mastishk, Hemant entered the class, classmate of Nikhil and co-founder of Mastishk. A vibrant personality; who lightened the discussion with his smiling face, both shared their experiences about the genesis of Mastishk, the problems faced by them running it and what they learnt from it. The discussion was very involving. After the arrival of our third Alum the discussion turned more engrossing and we enjoyed a mind boggling and eye opening session.

At the end of the session, they answered many of our doubts and guided us with some TO-Dos. They concluded the session with a promise to be back soon to help and guide us with our issues what so ever they may be.