Lessons from campus entrepreneurship: S. Chinnuthai

Here is her story about student entrepreneurship.

“I was doing B.Com., and one of the events in the college was M.O.P. Bazaar. Encouraged by my teacher, I decided to put up a stall in the Bazaar as a student entrepreneur. But I was wondering what kind of stall to put. While other students were very much in to things attracting students, I wanted to do something different which would attract all groups of people. I started with a home-furnishing stall with the name Home Needs. It catered to the needs of students and teachers, and also people of all age groups. There was a product which was a very big hit, and I really was encouraged to become an entrepreneur after that incident.”

What did she learn from the experience?

“First thing I learned was how to use contacts, and properly network. You have to write down all the contacts which you think will be useful for your entrepreneurship startup. You have to make an analysis. And the second thing is where we have to get the stock. We have to analyse which is the best place to get the stock and which is the right cost. As a startup we should minimise cost. That’s about it. The experience of entrepreneurship is a very big thing because you have the satisfaction of earning your own money with your talent. You also get to manage finance. That’s the very big part; it is a confidence booster. It enables you to think that even you can become an entrepreneur. You can have a success on your own.”

Playlist

In this set of four videos, you can hear Chinnuthai talking also about her entrepreneurial journey after college, and making a patriotic exhortation (in Tamil) to support domestic products.

Video playlist embed code: